The 1999 Kosovo crisis has forced the European Union to finally give concrete form to its ambitions in the sphere of the common foreign and security policy. At a time when agreement on defence issues seems out of reach, the member states' focus is on the development of a crisis management capability. It is argued that when the Union's diplomatic structures are complemented with military and civilian crisis response tools, much needed balance will be given to the Union's persona as an economic giant and a political dwarf. The article includes a number of measures which should be taken with a view to reinforcing and extending the Union's external role in this field.

The article introduces innovative means by which states can express their consent to be bound by treaties. Such innovative means have been incorporated in some multilateral environmental agreements that were concluded in December 1999 and January 2000. It is discussed whether limits of law-making have been transgressed by the use of these innovative means as the law of treaties allegedly presupposes that states actually give their consent to new treaty obligations, take some active step to express their consent to such obligations and do so at a time that the obligations were in existence and were known to them.

Article 27 ICC Statute has proven to cause compatibility problems with regard to immunity provisions in national constitutions. States have, however, indicated readiness to overcome these problems. On the other hand, Article 98 forms the pivot of the latest attempt of the United States, a non-signatory state, to ensure a de facto immunity from ICC jurisdiction for US nationals. This editorial sets out the contrasting approach of states to the ICC and concludes that the US Proposal for a Rule to 98(2) would have had the effect that the rule encompassed in Article 27 ICC Statute would in practice not apply to nationals of non-state parties.

This article seeks to complicate conventional understandings of the way in which IMF conditionality operates in relation to North/South relations. It begins with a genealogy of how the Fund became involved in lending to the South and argues that the Fund was transformed from an essentially monetary institution concerned with the industrialised states to a surveillance organisation directed at providing information about the South to the North. The article then explores what discursive functions the Fund might be performing in the context of the relationship between North and South. In this regard the author identifies two major themes underlying IMF discourse, both of which suggest that an underlying sense of danger of the South is felt by the North, and that this sense of danger replicates older fears. The author then argues that the discursive practices employed to address these fears resonate with older discursive strategies and considers why the reoccurrence of these “technologies of empire” might be problematic. It concludes with some (tentative) suggestions about how we might productively disrupt the colonial continuum of which these discursive practices seem to form part. There is a disturbing tendency in the Western Academy today to divorce the study of discursive forms from the study of other institutional forms, and the study of literary discourses from the mundane discourses of bureaucracies, armies, private corporations, and nonstate social organizations. […] [I]f the postcolony is in part a discursive formation, it is also true that discursivity has become too exclusively the sign and space of the colony and the postcolony in contemporary cultural studies. To widen the sense of what counts as discourse demands a corresponding widening of the sphere of the postcolony, to extend it beyond the geographical spaces of the former colonial world.

The “internationalization” of the guerrilla war in Colombia signals a different course for resolving the 40-year-old conflict. Upon close scrutiny, it may actually prolong the war. This is the case since both groups, Colombian publicists and US policy-makers, who stand in the position of stewards to an international approach, oppose substantial political negotiation. The bulk of this Article examines the positions of international law taken by Colombian publicists. The author focuses on two issues which have been the subject of much recent debate. The first is the status of Colombia's guerrilla forces. The second issue concerns the rules of conduct of non-international war. The last portion of this Article examines the meaning of US-led internationalization of the Colombian conflict. Colombia is the last site of major civil strife in our hemisphere.President Bill Clinton, 28 October 1998.Colombia's people […] should know that we understand the many dimensions and long-term nature of the problems they face, and that we will do all we can to help them.Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, 10 August 1999.

NATO's operation in Kosovo provoked diverse legal propositions. The operation was hailed as a humanitarian action stemming from a sense of human solidarity for the victims of the atrocities. On the other hand, it was vilified as a flagrant violation of fundamental principles of international law such as that of state sovereignty and non-intervention. Consequently, legal discourse is moulded by these antithetical ideological forces which epitomise the legal culture of medievalism and modernity. It thus resorts to reformulations and recombinations in order to achieve justifiable results. However, it remains external, lacking a sense of self-consciousness, because it distances the theorizing person from the object of her observation. Therefore, we propose here a discursive model which entails observation, reflection, assessment, and projection where the manifold aspects involved in a situation such as Kosovo are accounted for and new and better solutions are envisioned.

International lawyers, especially human rights lawyers, praise the Nationality Decrees decision as a watershed in the progressive expansion of international jurisdiction. Reexamination of the case challenges this understanding. The case proves to have involved a confrontation between rival colonial conceptions: French stress on the intimacy of an imperial tuteur with its protégés versus British focus on consent to subordination. Reexamination also reveals the decision as highly restrained, rejecting a French call for a judicially formulated colonial code. The case's protagonists bequeathed a conflicted conceptual legacy concerning international authority and nationality policy in whose wake debates about today's new internationalism follow. [Un protectorat] reste encore, à quelques égards tout au moins, au dehors, en marge, de façon qu'il y ait un dernier effort, un dernier acte à accomplir pour que ce territoire, qui reste nominalement, par une subtilité juridique, séparé du territoire national, s'y touve enfin réuni.[A protectorate] remains, in certain respects at least, outside, in the margin; so that a final exertion, a final act remains to be performed; in order that this territory which remains by a legal nicety nominally separated from the national territory may be finally united to it.Alfred de Lapradelle, French Oral Argument, Nationality Decrees Case

As the most serious war crimes (grave breaches) should not be left unpunished, the 1949 Geneva Conventions contain an unusually worded obligation to either prosecute such a suspected war criminal or to hand him over to another country to be tried there (aut judicare aut dedere in stead of aut dedere aut judicare). Fifty years on, less than one in six of the parties to the Conventions have established universal jurisdiction over grave breaches which is necessary to prosecute a suspect if he was to be found in their country. An assessment and classification of the Conventions, national laws, prosecutions and practical obstacles. But if, what God forbid, these Conventions should ever have to be applied, they must be obeyed.M.W. Mouton, Diplomatic Conference, Geneva 16 July 1949

The UN Charter and customary law contain significant ambiguities concerning the prohibition of enforcement measures by regional organizations. This fact – coupled with practical necessity – appears to have been responsible for the failure of the UN to condemn the unauthorized use of force by regional organizations in Liberia and Sierra Leone. These cases and legal doctrine suggested increasing regional autonomy in this field. Although reactions to Operation Allied Force in Kosovo cooled the enthusiasm of those who wished for the legitimization of such actions, evidence suggests that under certain circumstances unauthorized regional enforcement measures may at least avoid condemnation.

The law of international organisations needs to address comprehensively, the legal question of the accountability of such Organisations. In the contemporary world, whereas states, multinational corporations, and individuals can be held accountable under applicable systems of law, there is no equivalent set of rules that applies to international organisations. The OPCW, a global disarmament Organisation, is a good model of an accountable Organisation. The Chemical Weapons Convention embodies various sets of rules and provisions, which ensure the accountable functioning of the Organisation. This article examines the concept of the accountability of international organisations as envisioned by the International Law Association, and analyses the concept in the context of the OPCW.

Libya filed two separate applications on 3 March 1992. In the applications, Libya contended that it had not been possible to settle this dispute by negotiations and that the parties unable to agree on the organization of an arbitration to hear the matter. It accordingly submitted the disputes to the Court on the basis of Article 14, paragraph 1, of the Montreal Convention. Libya refers in the applications to the charging of two Libyan nationals, by the Lord Advocate of Scotland, and by a Grand Jury of the United States, respectively, with having caused a bomb to be placed aboard a Pan-am flight, which bomb subsequently exploded, causing the aeroplane to crash. Libya contends that the United Kingdom and the United States, respectively, by rejecting the Libyan efforts to resolve the matter within the framework of international law, including the Montreal Convention, are pressuring it into surrendering the two Libyan nationals for trial. In this connection, Libya refers to Article 1 of the Montreal Convention, according to which the charge constitutes an offence, and to the several other articles of that Convention which are relevant to Libya's alleged right to jurisdiction over the matter and the prosecution thereof. Libya alleges that these obligations are breached by the United Kingdom and the United States respectively.

Strategic Information Warfare (SIW) has recently begun to garner significant interest among the military and strategic defence communities. While nebulous and difficult to define, the basic object of SIW is to render an adversary's information systems inoperative or to cause them to malfunction. While information is the key, the means, and the target of SIW, real world damage is the intention and effect. It is, nonetheless, an area which has been almost completely ignored by positive international law. The purpose of the present article is to begin to resolve this lacuna by analysing the applicability to, and effect of, international humanitarian law (IHL) on SIW. The author makes recommendations as to possible alterations and improvements to IHL to resolve this lacuna. [In] 1956 when Khrushchev said: “We will bury the West.” What he was really saying was that the military industrial complex of the Soviet Union would win out over the military industrial complex of the West – and note that it's industrial. What Khrushchev didn't understand was that 1956 was the first year in the United States that white-collar and service employees outnumbered blue-collar workers. […] The industrial complex, military or not, was at its end point.Alvin Toffler, Novelist and Social Theorist

On 22 September 1999 the Islamic Republic of Pakistan instituted proceedings against India before the International Court of Justice concerning the shooting down of a Pakistani aircraft by Indian air force planes on 10 August 1999. In its Application filed in the Registry on 21 September 1999 Pakistan contends that the “unarmed Atlantique aircraft of the Pakistan navy was on a routine training mission with sixteen personnel on board” when “while flying over Pakistan air space it was fired upon with air to air missiles by Indian air force planes, without warning”, resulting in the death of all 16 personnel, “mostly young naval trainees”. It maintains that the aircraft, when shot down, was in an area situated approximately 70 to 90 miles east of Karachi and that it was “carrying out various training exercises and manoeuvres of instrument.” According to Pakistan, after radar contact was lost with the aircraft at 10.55 a.m., an intensive search was undertaken by Pakistani aircraft and helicopters and the wreckage was discovered around 2.55 p.m. 2 kilometres inside Pakistan territory. Pakistan further maintains that in the two and a half hours which elapsed between the shooting down and the discovery of the wreckage, “Indian helicopters […] sneaked into Pakistan's territory to pick up a few items from the debris […] in order to produce ‘evidence’ for [India's] initial claim that the Atlantique had been shot down over Indian air space.” However, according to Pakistan, because of the “overwhelming evidence […] Indian officials were obliged to admit that the Atlantique had indeed been shot down over Pakistan's air space.”

Territorial and boundary disputes provide a major part of the work of the International Court. The author considers how cases of this kind come to the Court and the issues of jurisdiction and justiciability they represent; explains how, when the Court decides such cases, it establishes the facts and applies the law; and, finally, discusses the question of implementation and the factors which determine the effectiveness of judgments. He concludes that in territorial and boundary cases, as elsewhere, the Court's decisions serve both to resolve specific disputes and to develop the law, while also highlighting the political context of international adjudication.

On 8 July 1991, Qatar filed an application instituting proceedings against Bahrain in respect of certain disputes between the two states relating to sovereignty over the Hawar Islands, sovereign rights over the shoals of Dibal and Qit'at Jaradah, and the delimitation of the maritime areas of the two states.

On 8 July 1991, Qatar filed an application instituting proceedings against Bahrain in respect of certain disputes between the two states relating to sovereignty over the Hawar Islands, sovereign rights over the shoals of Dibal and Qit'at Jaradah, and the delimitation of the maritime areas of the two states.

On 2 August 2000, Trial Chamber III (Judges May (Presiding), Bennouna and Robinson) dismissed Dragan Kolundžija's motion for severance of counts and/or bifurcation of trial, filed on 22 May 2000. Dragan Kolundžija requested in the motion that the Trial Chamber first hear and determine the charges dealing with crimes allegedly committed by the accused inside Keraterm, followed by either a separate trial (‘severance’), or a separate phase of trial (‘bifurcation’), addressing the issues surrounding the crimes allegedly committed outside Keraterm camp. The Trial Chamber dismissed the motion and argued that the defence proposal was impractical and that there was no good reason to conduct the trial in two separate phases.

On 20 September 1999, Eduardo Valencia-Ospina, Registrar of the International Court of Justice, advised Judge Stephen M. Schwebel, President of the Court, by a letter of 17 September 1999 that he would leave office on 5 February 2000. In his letter he stated that having drawn nearer to finishing his own term of duty and having achieved, thirty-five years in the service of the United Nations as well as being about to reach sixty years of age, he found no new reason to compel him to run for a fourth election. Moreover, he stated, that in view of the date of termination of his functions, he concluded that he could best serve the Court by leaving office before the election of the new President. In this manner, whoever is chosen will, likewise, be able to count, throughout the duration of his or her presidential period, on the continuous assistance of one and the same Registrar. By a letter of 20 September 1999, Judge Schwebel, President of the Court, accepted his resignation.

On 7 February 2000 Judge Gilbert Guillaume (France) was elected President of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) by his peers. He has been a member of the Court since 14 September 1987. Judge Shi Jiuyong (China) was elected Vice-President. He has been a member of the Court since 6 February 1994. They will both serve a three-year term.

Following the transfer of Dragan Nikolić to the ICTY on 22 April 2000, at his initial appearance, the accused pleaded “not guilty” to all charges raised against him in the amended indictment, dated 21 March 2000.