Discussions on the necessity to reform UN human rights treaty monitoring have witnessed a new dynamism over the last five years. After extensive consultation about ways to strengthen human rights treaty monitoring the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights is expected to propose a new set of reform measures in 2012. This article aims to structure and analyse the different implemented and tabled streamlining and enhancement measures. It argues that a further reform of UN human rights treaty monitoring should take account of two fundamental considerations. Firstly, next to treaty monitoring other international human rights protection methods have gained significance over the last few decades. Today, judicial enforcement and political peer-to-peer protection through the UPR mechanism effectively condition the room for added value for treaty monitoring. Secondly, given that a case for such added value can still be made, it is significant that human rights monitoring mechanisms have not so far sufficiently been equipped, or equipped themselves to achieve structural domestic impact of their recommendations and views. This not only inherently hampers their impact, but also threatens support for their activities. In particular, prior requesting of specific input, clear indicators for what is compliant behaviour and what is not, and targeted follow-up to recommendations, all crucial aspects of ‘constructive dialogue’, have not been consistently institutionalised by treaty bodies. In this light the article outlines some concrete ways forward for a reformed reform agenda that could lay the groundwork for measures to sustainably strengthen UN human rights treaty monitoring.

Indigenous peoples have historically experienced countless losses of cultural relics and material and spiritual treasures as well as the destruction of their sacred cultural sites, a situation that continues to prevail. This desecration of ancestral sites and the pillaging of sacred objects results in the cultural debasement of indigenous peoples, causing a serious threat to their continuing collective existence as distinct societies. Unfortunately, the present international law regime for the protection, repatriation and return of stolen and illegally exported cultural property presents serious deficiencies as regards its ability to reverse this state of affairs and effectively safeguard indigenous peoples' heritage.

Egypt and Sudan's reluctance to share the Nile waters with the remaining riparian states has soured relations between them. The downstream countries base their claims on historical legal rights embodied in the 1929 and 1959 Nile Waters Agreements. Past efforts to enhance regional cooperation such as the Nile Basin Initiative and the Cooperative Framework Agreement (between the upstream countries) did not appear to significantly improve their relations. However, the legal and political situation has recently changed: South Sudan's independence from Sudan on 9 July 2011, the outbreak of civil turmoil in Egypt on 25 January 2011 leading to the fall of Mubarak, and the unilateral start of the construction of the Grand Millennium Dam (GMD) by Ethiopia at the beginning of April 2011. This paper sets out to address the following question: Do these recent changes create an opportunity to incorporate a more equitable sharing of the waters in the Nile Basin legal regime? It examines how the new changes may affect the existing legal debates on the validity of the Nile Agreements, state succession given that Sudan has split into two nations, whether Ethiopia is bound by the 1902 Agreement to notify planned measures and whether the new GMD gives expression to the implementation of the equity principle. It concludes that there is some hope for a more equitable sharing of the Nile waters given the recent legal and political changes.

Combating piracy at sea and apprehending pirates have been a long-standing problem for the global community. Increasing acts of piracy off the coast of Somalia have prompted the UN Security Council to intervene in the matter. The Council, through several resolutions, has authorised states to take action against Somali pirates in the territorial waters and land territory of Somalia and recently adopted a resolution urging all states to fully implement relevant international conventions in their domestic legal systems. However, despite the Security Council's intervention in the matter most states are still reluctant to prosecute Somali pirates in their domestic courts. Considering the most recent Security Council resolution and existing international law, this article examines whether there is an international obligation to criminalise piracy under domestic legal frameworks and to prosecute pirates in domestic courts. It submits that existing international law arguably imposes an obligation to prosecute pirates, at least in certain circumstances, and the recently adopted Security Council resolution reinforces this obligation.

The ICJ's 2010 Kosovo advisory opinion opens many interesting avenues of research, but one feature may have been overlooked in the recent commentary on the opinion: in answering the question put, the Court reformulated or changed it. Whether the Court may do so will be discussed in this article. The Court obviously felt that it was entitled to do what it had earlier done, but this is not enough to justify it doing so. This article proceeds in three steps. First, the case law of the PCIJ and the ICJ on the issue is reviewed. Second, the Kosovo opinion is discussed in the light of the precedents. Third, and centrally, the legal framework together with the doctrinal opinions and theoretical considerations is discussed to answer the question whether the Court may change the question. Concluding, this article opines that – whenever interpretation becomes change – the Court is prohibited from doing so by Article 107 of the Rules of Court.