The bombing of Kosovo was a crude manifestation of a clash of immanent world-views. The negative of a pre-1945 horizontal and bilateral international structure by a post-1945 vertical and multilateral structure is beginning to produce a new structure, a structure of international social order, a third dimension which contains and surpasses the other two. The International Court, itself an institutional relic of an horizontal and bilateral world, is not well placed to assert social responsibility over the arrogant public-realm power which is being wielded in the name of international social order.

The quantity of man-made space objects, ranging from abandoned launch vehicle stages to fragmentation debris, is remarkable. At the time, the drafters of the Outer Space Treaty did not (and perhaps could not) anticipate how great the problem of debris in outer space would one day become. As a result, they only drafted general provisions for the protection of the space environment which are generally deemed insufficient. This article aims to demonstrate that both general rules of international law and the UNCOPUOS Debris Mitigation Guidelines come to the rescue in addressing the space debris issue as they complement and complete the general obligations contained in the Outer Space Treaty. Particular attention is paid to anti-satellite weapon tests, which have catastrophic consequences in terms of creating debris but nonetheless continue to be carried out. Finally, it ascertains whether an obligation on states to actively remove their space debris exists.

The fate of Chinese legal scholarship appears to have been closely linked to the chronological development of legal education in China. The periods of incubation of legal scholarship covered nearly three decades of internal strife and political turmoil from 1949 to 1978. The rebirth of Chinese legal scholarship did not take place immediately upon China's return to the United Nations (in 1971). This return, however, marked the first sign of a change of policy towards legal scholarship.

The author briefly describes the history, development and current status of (Chinese) legal scholarship and attitude towards international law in China.

Reprisals originally served individuals seeking redress for an injustice suffered abroad. The concept, however, has undergone extensive development. Nowadays, reprisals are -in themselves illegal- retaliatory measures used by one state seeking redress for an illegal act committed by another. The prerequisites for legal reprisals areformulated in the Naulilaa Incident arbitration of 1928. In her examination of the recent history of the concept of reprisals, this arbitration is the author's starting point. After this examination she compares reprisals to other methods of redress. Finally, she investigates the limitation of the use of reprisals as laid down in humanitarian law treaties.

The present article describes the dispute settlement system of the Organization of the Islamic Conference through the envisaged creation of the International Islamic Court of Justice. The Court's Statute, adopted in 1987, considers the Islamic Shari'ah or Islamic law as the fundamental law to be applied by the Court for the resolution of international disputes. Therefore, the Court will have a religious character considering a local religious code as the primary applicable law. The International Islamic Court of Justice has not yet been set up. Its creation might have the effect of grouping Islamic states under the same international judicial system, and of causing a strong political impact in respect of the relations with the State of Israel and of the Palestinian question.

The modern professional world of international adjudication bears little trace of the ‘invisible college’ theorized by Oscar Schachter 50 years go. Instead, it has become a social field marked by a fierce competition among actors possessing unequal skills and influence. Moving from these premises, this article unravels the socio-professional dynamics of the community of legal experts – judges, arbitrators, government agents, private counsel, court bureaucrats, specialized academics, etc. – dealing with the judicial settlement of international disputes on a daily basis. On the one hand, the community has developed a specific set of social structures, practices, and dispositions that distinguish it from the rest of the international legal profession and insulate its activities from outside interference. On the other, it is the site of an endless struggle among its participants, who deploy various forms of capital to consolidate their positions relative to one another. Having outlined the twofold structure of the community – externally autonomous and internally conflictive – the article reflects on how co-operation and competition affect the everyday unfolding of international judicial proceedings and the production of legal outcomes at the international level.

The European Court of Human Rights has often been criticized for lacking clarity and consistency in its reasoning of balancing human rights against conflicting public interests. To reconcile national security with human rights protection, the Court requires the interference with rights to be suitable for reaching the objective purported by the government. In this article I deal with how the Court conducts the suitability test in national security cases, in line with two models under which a few representative test considerations can be categorized: human rights priority model and national security priority model. To explain how each model works in a comparable sense, I follow the same analytic structure and examine the manner of the Court’s test and the intensity of its scrutiny. I argue that in compliance with the two models, the Court applies the suitability test in a consistent and predictable way in national security case law.

This article critiques the global concern that international commercial arbitration (ICA) is becoming increasingly ‘judicialized’, addressing the growing sentiment in ICA that arbitral proceedings are too lengthy, expensive, and complex. Assuming a contrarian perspective, it argues that attempts to address the cost and length of arbitration proceedings ought not to undermine the value of finely reasoned arbitral decisions grounded in law and justice. It also argues for a contextual assessment of ICA that extends beyond the debate over ‘judicialization’.

Using global illustrations and ICA developments in Australia as an initial guide, this article suggests that balancing party autonomy, accountability, efficiency, and fairness in ICA can help resolve these growing criticisms of ‘judicialization’. Ultimately, the reform of international arbitration should take place within a framework of ‘international best practice’ that is both analytical in nature and functional in operation. As such, ICA should not only be affordable and expeditious, it should serve as a legitimate and effective method of resolving international commercial disputes. In addition, it should balance the virtue of transparent proceedings against the need to respect the confidences of the parties.

Environmental changes, such as sea level rise and coastal erosion, have an increasing impact on coastlines worldwide. Unilaterally declared maritime limits are generally determined by reference to coastlines and they are only binding insofar as they conform to the applicable law. Bilateral maritime boundaries are not equally affected by changing coastal geography because, once established, they are binding on parties to the arrangement under the pacta sunt servanda and res judicata principles. Maritime delimitation generally produces geographically stable boundaries. In principle, these remain fixed notwithstanding changes to the coastal geography that generates maritime entitlements or the ecosystems central to national interests. Indeed, stability and predictability are among the objectives of maritime delimitation. However, legal stability can be achieved without geographic stability and the requirement of predictability may be unattainable in a new world of environmental uncertainty. After all, baselines and derived outer limits fluctuate to reflect changing coastal geography and the same is true of bilateral boundaries, unless and until otherwise agreed. States have concluded boundary agreements that refer to fluctuating concepts, such as the equidistance line, instead of fixed co-ordinates. Furthermore, the International Court of Justice has left a segment of a maritime boundary to fluctuate until otherwise agreed and a Chamber of the Court has addressed the possibility of establishing a boundary by reference to a fluid oceano-biological boundary in the marine environment. This suggests that maritime boundaries can fluctuate if established by reference to sufficiently clear and relevant limits in the natural environment.