In recent years there has been growing support, manifested in various international fora, for the notion that a third generation of human rights, composed of solidarity rights, is emerging. The principal assumptions behind this concept are:

(1) that the principal categories or sets of human rights presently recognized by international law (civil and political rights on one hand and economic, social and cultural rights on the other) can be termed respectively first and second generation rights;

(2) that these rights are not sufficiently flexible or dynamic to be able to respond adequately to present circumstances;

(3) that there is a set of more or less homogeneous demands which are distinguished primarily by the fact that solidarity is a prerequisite to their realization; and

(4) that these new demands are presently in the process of acquiring international recognition as human rights.

The end of nuclear testing has been a goal and dream of a number of generations for five decades. The actual date of entry into force of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT, or Treaty), however, is still unclear at this stage. One of the lessons learned by the international community is that mere negotiations of an arms control treaty are not enough. The raison d'être of creating an international treaty is that it be implemented. Without implementation, the treaty just conserves certain normative provisions elaborated through the international negotiations for an indefinite time in the future.

Modern international law offers certain legal practices to implement relevant norms in a treaty that formally does not meet the requirements for entry into force. In this article an attempt has been made, bearing in mind the existing international legal practice and the present stage of the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization activities, to study alternative means of applying the CTBT provisionally. The analysis has been done on the basis of international treaty law, international organizations and arms control. The article pretends neither to propose concrete practical steps towards the full implementation of the CTBT, nor to ignore the importance of its entry into force. The intention of the author is to look for alternatives that might be helpful to achieve a safer world, without nuclear explosions. The article is intended to provide ideas for possible debate, which appropriate conclusion would definitely promote the values of nonproliferation and peace in the years to come.

The article begins by analysing the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties as an authoritative basis for provisional application of international treaties. It then considers the CTBT and the legal prerequisites for provisional application. The article concludes with an assumption that the completion of the CTBT verification regime would accelerate the need to discuss alternative means of applying CTBT without substituting its entry into force.

The sea level is rising. One of the causes of this phenomenon is the so-called ‘greenhouse effect’. This concept refers to the rising of the temperature of the atmosphere as a result of the increase of the concentration of carbon dioxide and several other gases in the atmosphere. One of the consequences of this rise in temperature is the melting of land ice, in particular glaciers and the ice-caps of Greenland and perhaps Antarctica. This melting water enters the ocean, which results, in combination with the expansion of sea water as a consequence of its higher temperature, in a rising of the sea level.

This article discusses some problems arising from the proposed conferral of international criminal jurisdiction on the African Court of Justice and Human Rights. While it is uncertain whether the AU will ever adopt the Draft Protocol amending the Statute of the Court, it is worthwhile examining certain provisions of the Protocol which, in addition to the myriad political hurdles that will militate against the adoption and/or entry into force of the Protocol, will most likely prevent the Court from exercising that jurisdiction. The article concludes that the future of international criminal justice in Africa lies not in the duplication of international criminal justice systems, but in the AU ensuring that its member states take the prevention and domestic prosecution of international crimes more seriously, and in the ICC improving its modus operandi vis-à-vis its member states.

According to Article 1 ECHR, States Parties are under the obligation to guarantee the Convention rights and freedoms to persons ‘within their jurisdiction’. In the famous Banković decision the European Court of Human Rights interpreted the notion of jurisdiction restrictively, considering it as an essentially territorial concept and its extraterritorial exercise as strictly exceptional. The decision has thus imposed a strong presumption against the applicability of the Convention to extraterritorial state conduct. This article explores the subject of extraterritorial application of the ECHR in view of the Court’s recent case law on Article 1. It shows that unlike in the case law of the European Court, jurisdiction in public international law is a flexible concept, the meaning of which is not necessarily restricted to territoriality. The article demonstrates that in the context of human rights treaties it is possible to devise a more suitable concept of jurisdiction; a concept that would be compatible with the general international law of jurisdiction and at the same time would make it possible to respond to the challenges posed by the globalization of state conduct affecting human rights.

The concept of sources of law has only for a short time in history been confined to the formally adopted legal norms of statutory, conventional or customary nature. Such a positivistic and narrow notion can be confronted to an older layer of the concept, which has gained again some prominence in the twentieth century, whereby the sources encompass also all the elements which concur to the interpretation and development of the law. In this larger area, general principles of law play an important, albeit often invisible, role as catalysts of a law-in-movement. In particular, they offer a legal basis from which new legal doctrines or norms can be derived from case to case, in order to fit new social and legal needs. The evolution thereby remains at least partly anchored in the legal sphere, through the link with the legally connoted general principles, and at the same time strikes out to the changing needs in the social and political arena. Thus, general principles of law are particularly instructive elements of this type of dynamic equilibrium to be achieved. Their different functions, and especially their role as law-creating arguments, are put into limelight in this short contribution. These functions are illustrated more concretely through the example of the powerful principle of good faith.

Multinational Enterprises (MNEs) are very powerful entities in the current world order. Indeed, it is trite to note that the power of some MNEs outstrips the power of certain nation-states. In view of their vast economic power and ubiquitous presence, and consequent intrusion into many aspects of people's lives, it is not surprising that MNE activity can and does occasionally impact detrimentally on the enjoyment of internationally recognised human rights.

There have been numerous unsuccessful attempts to define terrorism generically in international treaty law since the 1920s, from early conferences on the unification of criminal law to efforts in the League of Nations, the International Law Commission, and the UN General Assembly. While these sources do not carry great weight as evidence of customary law, they illustrate the recurring normative and political disputes surrounding definition and elucidate the basic features of an international prohibition and/or crime of terrorism, as perceived by different international actors. The recurrent attempts at definition indicate that the international community attaches considerable normative importance to it. Drafting of a UN Comprehensive Terrorism Convention continues in the Sixth Committee, and the UN High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change advocated definition in treaty law in late 2004. Generic definition of terrorism can capture and stigmatize the political motives which distinguish terrorism from ordinary violent crime, or transnational organized crime for financial benefit. Following an historical pattern, agreement on the scope of any exceptions to a definition of terrorism remains the key obstacle, although much of the argument about exceptions is ideological, not substantive.

The present article analyses threats of armed force by states against other states. After determining what conduct amounts to a ‘threat of force’, the current status of its prohibition is investigated. In particular, this article contends that the prohibition of the threat of force contained in Article 2(4) of the UN Charter reflects customary international law. The fact that only a few states have supported the legality of threats for certain law enforcement purposes prevents the prohibition of any threats of force from being qualified as jus cogens. This status should be limited to the prohibition of threats of aggression, which constitutes the common denominator of the practice and opinio juris of all states.

The consequences of threats of force under the law of treaties, the law of state responsibility and international criminal law are then discussed, in particular treaties, the conclusion of which has been obtained by the threat of force in violation of the UN Charter are void ab initio. Article 41 of the ILC Articles on State Responsibility could also entail a duty of non-recognition of situations procured by the threat of aggression. On the other hand, threats of aggression (let alone threats of less serious forms of the use of force) cannot be qualified as international crimes entailing individual responsibility.

As to remedies at the disposal of the victim state, armed responses to threats of force would be lawful only within the limits of self-defence, and only if the threatened armed attack is imminent enough to meet the Caroline requirements. On the contrary, coercive responses to non-imminent armed attacks are still prohibited under contemporary international law.

The editors of this Review have had the felicitous idea to mark its 50th anniversary with a special issue devoted to the time factor in international law, with one contribution devoted to the apparently declining importance of travaux préparatoires in the interpretation of treaties. Under Article 32 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, the preparatory works of a treaty are only to be consulted in a limited number of circumstances, and then only as supplementary means of interpretation: when application of the general rule (combining a textual approach with an interpretation in light of the treaty's object and purpose) does not lead to satisfactory results. Under Article 31, paragraph 2, of the Vienna Convention, travaux préparatoires do not even qualify as part of a treaty's context; clearly, the Vienna Convention envisages but a very limited role for a treaty's preparatory works. Yet, most international lawyers will almost automatically include a discussion of preparatory works in legal argument, and will consider it vital to do so: an argument without paying due regard to a treaty's drafting history is an incomplete argument. It is this ambivalence which I hope to explore.

The 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict has, until recently, sat on the sidelines of humanitarian law. One reason for this, which has been overlooked to date, is a seemingly widespread though rarely confessed confusion over the nature and extent of the ‘cultural property’ to which it applies. Article 1 defines cultural property within the meaning of the Convention as: ‘movable or immovable property of great importance to the cultural heritage of every people …’

The law of State immunity has changed very significantly over the last twenty years. Legal development often occurs because a new international law topic has burst upon the scene, or because pressures-have mounted from numerically important States who find the old law unsatisfactory. But developments in the law of State immunity seem to have been precipitated by other factors. The topic has a very long legal history. And much of the third world, from whom so much of the impetus for change today comes, has very conservative views about State immunity. The developments in State immunity have been a self-generated response to the requirements of the contemporary commercial world and to notions of stability, fairness and equity in the market place.

In the practice of modern international law, if a certain understanding is advanced as the correct interpretation of a treaty provision, the proposition is assessed using the rules of interpretation laid down in the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, Articles 31–33. This article is concerned with the relationship held in such an interpretation process between the preparatory work of a treaty – described as a supplementary means of interpretation in Article 32 – and the three primary means of interpretation that can be used by an interpreter citing Article 31. Judged by the wordings of Articles 31 and 32, the relationship between the primary and the supplementary means of interpretation is hierarchical. As a consequence, preparatory work may be used to determine the correct meaning of a treaty provision, only on the condition that in the earlier stages of the interpretation process, the application of Article 31 has been found to leave the meaning of the interpreted treaty ‘ambiguous or obscure’, or to lead to a result ‘which is manifestly absurd or unreasonable’. Several scholars in the area have recently argued for granting the preparatory work of a treaty a more prominent role in the interpretation process. As this article will show, such a claim builds on arguments that do not stand up to careful legal analysis. It should, therefore, be discarded as unsound.

Over the last couple of years, international lawyers have hotly debated the correct way to apply Article 31, paragraph 3(c) of the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. Discussions have focused on the meaning of ‘the parties’. Traditionally this expression has always been interpreted in the stricter sense of all parties to the interpreted treaty. Voices are now raised suggesting a broader interpretation. According to this view, the correct meaning of ‘the parties’ is the two or more parties to a specific dispute. Given that the two interpretations of Article 31, paragraph 3(c) will often be mutually exclusive, international legal literature provokes a review of the possible reasons that give us ground to adopt them. This article provides such a review. It arrives at the conclusion that only the stricter interpretation can be seriously defended as being correct. First, only the stricter interpretation agrees with the clear ordinary meaning of Article 31, paragraph 3(c). Secondly, even assuming that the ordinary meaning of the provision is ambiguous, a strong case can be made in favour of the stricter interpretation using other data of interpretation, such as the context, the object and purpose of the treaty, and the preparatory work.

The 25th anniversary of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in November 2014 is an appropriate occasion for reviewing its record of achievements and challenges in protecting children's rights worldwide. Clear accomplishments to build on are the comprehensive nature of the Convention and its capacity to accommodate the largely diverse contexts in which its provisions are to be realized. In addition, widespread and massive law reform is one of the most tangible achievements stimulated by the Convention. Finally, the existence and performance of the Committee on the Rights of the Child, charged with monitoring the implementation of the Convention, has been assessed positively. Most recently, this was rewarded with the entry into force of the third Optional Protocol to the Convention, which introduced communications procedures including individual and state complaints mechanisms. After having reviewed this record of selected achievements critically, four selected major challenges that still stand in the way of the fuller realization of the Convention will be presented more briefly. The main reason for this difference in emphasis is that, on the whole, the achievements speak more significantly to issues concerning the progressive development of international law while the challenges are, on the whole, more of a practical nature. The latter are: the persistence of poverty and other root causes of many child rights problems; difficulties in permeating into the private – including domestic and corporate – sphere where a considerable number of child rights violations occur but which are still hardly covered explicitly by international human rights law; and issues concerning the availability of data and resources.

The 1907 Hague Peace Conference was the only worldwide diplomatic summit ever before WW I and the League Era. Summoned in the wake of war between the waning Russian and rising Japanese empires, the concluding of the epochal Anglo-French Entente and amidst growing naval rivalry between Germany and Britain, the Conference met at a highly critical moment. It boldly and very pragmatically addressed the many vexing questions issuing from the distinctly shifting power balance on the global and European planes. The intriguing debate between powers great and small, western and non-western traditions, and two altogether different outlooks on the role of the law in global society – that of stern diplomats in the Austinian tradition and the champions of the Institut – unerringly augured the complexities of debate within later League and UN bodies.

The Conference's failure of immediate, palpable result proved ominous. Incapacity to solve the political riddles of international adjudication – the selection of judges, the composition of benches – along with impotence to curb naval rivalry, sealed the fate of peace. Still, it was the nations' obstinacy which barred change, not recalcitrance of subject-matter or lack of insight. In fact, at The Hague, in 1907, the legal and intellectual blueprint of a new world society was first advanced.

Intertemporal law governs the applicability of international legal norms ratione temporis. According to often used terminology, intertemporal law has two different branches. This article provides clarification of the so-called ‘second branch of intertemporal law’. It does so by refuting two commonly held assumptions. First, as established in section 2 of the article, the second branch of intertemporal law is not an exception to the first branch of that law. It cannot be, since both branches of intertemporal law centre on the same legal principle: an action or a factual state of affairs must be assessed in the light of the law which is contemporary with it. Secondly, as implicated by the line of reasoning in section 2, and further confirmed by the inferential evidence cited in section 3, the practical relevance of the second branch of intertemporal law is not confined to the application of the law on the acquisition to territory. It pertains to a more widely defined group of norms in international law.

As with everything which cannot be seen or grasped, customary law remains something of a smiling sphinx in the realm of legal theory. Over the centuries, it has tended to generate puzzling questions of understanding and of construction, some linked to the concept of custom itself, others linked to the conception of custom within the context of a specific society with its special structure. In societies where custom continues to play a paramount role, that is, in societies deprived of a centralised legislator, the predominance of custom imports into the law and law-making the many uncertainties invariably linked with it. This is particularly true of international law. The objective of this short contribution is to address some of these problems in the form of brief commentaries following a concise statement of the point or problem at issue.

Kosovo's declaration of independence from Serbia in February 2008 has proven to be a controversial action. Although recognised by a not insignificant number of states, the opposition of a greater number reflects the uncertainty over the legality of an entity's secession from its parent state within international law. The present article considers three ways in which international lawyers might choose to respond to Kosovo. Firstly, it seeks to assess whether the norm of self-determination affords grounds upon which Kosovo's secession might be justified. It will be shown that the scope of self-determination, as a norm which evolved in response to post-War pressures for decolonisation, is insufficiently clear and certain to apply to the case of Kosovo. Secondly, the case for broadening any right of secession afforded by international law so as to apply to cases such as Kosovo is considered. However, it will be shown that to take such an approach would open a pandora's box and risk legitimising serious fragmentation of the international states system. Finally, the possibility of treating Kosovo as a unique and exceptional situation is considered. However, it will be concluded that it is difficult to establish any genuinely unique and exceptional characteristics applicable to Kosovo.

Despite being contradictory to the World Trade Organisation's (WTO) core objective of freer trade, its rules permits execution of preferential trade agreements (PTAs) provided certain conditions are complied with. WTO mechanism to oversee compliance of these conditions on PTAs is continuously evolving from somewhat tentative approach of earlier General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) Panels to more willingness of active judicial interpretation by WTO Dispute Settlement Body (DSB). This article critically analyses the WTO provisions on PTAs taking into account the reports of GATT panels and WTO. It also sheds light on WTO member states views on controversial and hazy issues of the GATT/WTO jurisprudence on PTAs. The article in its concluding part suggests several recommendations designed to ensure greater compliance of the PTAs with rules of the WTO.