International obligations may rest on all sorts of persons: states, organizations, corporations, human beings; in short, all entities capable of being influenced by the contents of the obligation. It may be said that an international obligation so incumbent upon a person makes him an international person, which does not exclude him at the same time from remaining or becoming a person under some national or other system of law. The content of an obligation aims at directing the future conduct of the obligee. It must, however, be noticed that some kinds of obligation are not incumbent on persons as such, but on a society as a whole, in its constitutional function of making the legal system work, such as rules on decision-making or of conflict resolution, or the rules on securing compliance with obligations and pacta sunt servanda. They are to be applied above all by authorities (organs). They are, as it were, the rules of the game.

The Rock of Gibraltar has long been a bone of contention between Spain and the United Kingdom. Talks undertaken in Lisbon in April 1980 between the two countries on the problem of Gibraltar had however, given rise to hopes that normal relations would soon be restored between Gibraltar and Spain, that is, until the Falklands Conflict led to the indefinite postponement of negotiations in June 1982. Matters have progressed only imperceptibly since.

The question whether non-nationals can take part in domestic elections at local, regional or national level is of major theoretical and practical significance. Under the new Dutch constitution, non-Dutch residents can for the first time be given the right by law to vote and stand in local council elections. After casting a glance over the border at the situation in other countries, the writer raises the question of whether the present revision of the constitution is not too limited in that it restricts these rights to local council elections.

The object of this article is to explore the normative quality and effect of scope-delineated legislation – both Israeli and foreign – in the context and within the framework of the underlying principles of Private International Law in the Israeli legal system. It should be noted that the following analysis focuses exclusively on scope-delineation of substantive legal rules (of the Israeli lex fori as well as of the foreign lex causae). Choice of law rules as such (including internationally uniform choice of law standards) and special (internationally uniform) substantive rules for situations with foreign elements will not be discussed here.