In this article, a cross-section has been outlined of three international organisations which have come into being in the Commonwealth Carribean. First there is the parent organisation, the Caribbean Community (Caricom); linked therewith but based on separate treaties, are many other organisations, of which the Legal Council and the Examinations Council have been closely examined. The cross-section is drawn through the subjects of international law which figure in the three founding instruments examined.

The exercise, in the political sphere, of powers traditionally characterized as inherent in his office has become a well-established and particularly important activity of the United Nations Secretary-General.

One of the objects of the Bank for International Settlements, as laid down in Article 3 of its Statutes, is “to act as trustee or agent in regard to international financial settlements entrusted to it under agreements with the parties concerned”. This text was adopted pursuant to the Final Act of the Hague Conference of 20 January 1930, and has remained unaltered since then. In fact it formed an annex to the Constituent Charter of the Bank, the text of the Constituent Charter being itself embodied in the convention respecting the Bank for International Settlements entered into at The Hague between the Governments of Germany Belgium, France, the United Kingdom, Italy and Japan of the one part and the Government of the Swiss Confederation of the other part. This Convention was one of the many separate but related agreements which were simultaneously executed, or approved in form, at The Hague on 20 January 1930 to give effect to the Young Plan and thus settle the reparations question.

There is no doubt that case-law plays an important role in developing the law of maritime delimitation. In fact, since the 1969 North Sea Continental Shelf cases, ten international decisions relating to maritime delimitation have been rendered. Hence, it may be said that the accumulation of jurisdictional practice in this field makes it possible to speak of ‘case-law’. The Eritrea/Yemen arbitration (second phase), which will be examined below, is the ninth judgment in the field of maritime delimitation.

In the present writer's view, certain decisions of international organizations are to be recognized as manifestations of international law in their own right; those, namely, which address themselves to the members of the relevant organization, or to some of them, and bind them as to their conduct. Being manifestations in written form, their interpretation may as much constitute a problem as does the interpretation of treaties. The main question, here, is whether the methods and rules of treaty interpretation also apply to the interpretation of these “conductdecisions” of international organizations.

One of the basic principles of Dutch civil procedural law is reflected in the requirement that the defendant must have the opportunity of expressing his point of view in court. This principle of “auditur et altera pars” is closely linked to another fundamental principle of Dutch procedural law, viz., the principle requiring that all the parties in a case should be treated on an equal basis. Stein argues that “these principles would not be realized if the law had not laid down special provisions to ensure that the defendant is informed of the case made against him to enable him to have an opportunity of opposing it himself”. The defendant is involved in the case once the preliminary summons has been served. In the law of the Netherlands – and of most other countries – the position of a defendant resident in the country concerned is hedged with safeguards. Various steps must be taken to inform the defendant regarding the case made against him. In most cases it is only a consequence of the defendant's own actions if he remains ignorant of the case against him.

The publication of the arbitral award in the Asian Agricultural Products Ltd. (AAPL) v. Republic of Sri Lanka case serves as a forceful reminder that long after individual confrontations in the Sri Lankan civil war are removed from the headlines, the personal, legal and financial consequences of mat country's tragedy shall continue to bedevil the society. In this case, AAPL, formerly a foreign investor in Sri Lanka, claimed damages against the Government for destruction of property arising out of military operations undertaken by official security forces. The Tribunal, by a majority, found in favour of the claimant, but did so only after a fairly lengthy review both of canons of treaty interpretation in international law and of principles of State responsibility for actions undertaken during civil unrest More specifically, because the proceedings were instituted under the United Kingdom/Sri Lanka Bilateral Investment Treaty of 1980, the primary focus of the Tribunal's attention concerned the applicability of particular provisions of mat treaty to circumstances of military and paramilitary activity; at the same time, the military background to the case also prompted the Tribunal to give broad consideration to the standard of diligence owed by government forces to foreign investors under general international law.

Restrictions imposed by domestic law do not excuse a State from due performance of international legal obligations. Either in observance of this principle, or as a sheer coincidence, most States have a framework of domestic legislation that, to varying degrees, would facilitate compliance with international legal obligations. But, as Wallace observes, ‘there is no universal practice stipulating how States should incorporate international law into their domestic legal systems and it is a State's perception of international law which determines the way in which international law becomes part of municipal law’.

Following the worst industrial accident in history, the leak of poisonous methyl isocyanate gas in Bhopal, India and the deaths of more than 2,000 people with injuries to more than 200,000, suits were soon brought in the United States against Union Carbide Corporation, the owner of a little over 50 percent of the stock in Union Carbide India Limited, the owner and operator of the disastrous plant. The American suits were consolidated in one action before the United States Federal District Court for the Southern District of New York. The Federal District Court, however, dismissed the action on the grounds of forum non conveniens, deciding that the Bhopal case would be more properly litigated in India. The District Court's opinion was endorsed by the Federal Circuit Court for the Second Circuit, also concluding that India, not the United States, was the appropriate situs for the trial.

Only three years after the first milestone on the road towards the establishment of a legal regime of outer space was reached through the unanimous adoption by the XVIII General Assembly of the United Nations of a “Declaration of Legal Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space” (13th December 1963, no. 1962), a second landmark was passed.

Natural resources trust funds have been employed in the developed world since the 1970s in order to achieve a fair allocation of revenues and promote social growth. This model has been applied recently in developing economies, however lacking transparency and democratic oversight. As a result of increased public spending and depletion of the funds' assets, instead of economic growth, Dutch disease set in when oil prices fell. The World Bank-inspired Chad trust fund is the only of its kind with some external oversight and a contractual obligation by the recipient state to use the fund's earnings for social development. The idea is commendable, but implementation has been slack and if this model is to work in the future the Bank must condition similar loans to full external oversight, otherwise the whole operation will remain a farce.

In 1893 the Hague Conference on Private International Law convened for the first time and put also certain matters of family law on its agenda. With respect to the law of husband and wife three conventions were drafted in a short period of time and opened for signature and ratification by the member states:

1. the Convention of 12 June 1902 Governing Conflicts of Laws Concerning Marriage

2. the Convention of 12 June 1902 Governing Conflicts of Laws and Conflicts of Jurisdiction concerning Divorce and Separation

3. the Convention of 17 July 1905 concerning Conflicts of Laws relating to the Effects of Marriage on the Rights and Duties of Spouses inter se and on the Spouses' Property.

The scourge of illegitimate governance in its many forms is, and always has been, globally endemic, constituting, in a contemporary sense, the single most important impoverishing and destabilising element in our ‘global neighbourhood’. If, in the view of nations, the major mandates of the law and common institutions of nations, as expressed in the Charter of the United Nations, are to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom, to maintain international peace and security, and to be a centre for the harmonisation of the actions of nations in the attainment of these common ends, then it is pertinent that international legal scholarship cast and maintain its powerful gaze upon this intensely pernicious phenomenon. It is also important that such scholarly enterprise be directed at the elucidation of the existing international regulatory framework for the control and perhaps elimination of such conduct; as well as at the construction of such a paradigm where none already exists.

The territorial scope of the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court was an issue which was hotly debated prior to the adoption of the Rome Statute. Yet, in the first 10 years of the Court's operation the negotiators' concerns with regard to a jurisdictional overreach seem to have been misplaced. To date, the interpretation and application of Article 12(2)(a) of the Rome Statute – the key provision in this context – have remained uncontroversial. This practice, however, has left certain important questions untouched, and particularly the issue of jurisdiction in cases of the partial commission of a crime on State Party territory. In this context, the question is how little of an international crime should take place on State Party territory for the ICC to have jurisdiction. It is hereby suggested that in order to answer this question, the Court may have recourse to the jurisdictional rule of reason developed by Francis Mann in the context of his work on state jurisdiction and antitrust law. In this context, it is suggested that the Court would have jurisdiction over any case or situation that would have a sufficiently strong connection with the territory of a State Party. The meaning of a ‘sufficiently strong connection’ – an essential ‘reasonableness’ approach, showing the absence of an abuse of rights or arbitrariness – would then need to be specified on a case-by-case basis.

Despite great efforts made to conform maritime practice at The Hague in 1907, and later in London in 1909, the sheer pace of industrial competition in evidence by 1914 meant not only that disarmament remained out of the question, but further, that new theories of wartime necessity might over-ride the many developed, ‘civilised’ wartime restraints, if to do so favoured victory. One body of rules quickly disregarded was that for armed neutrality at sea, by which is meant a state stance of abstention and impartiality declared on the outbreak of war, in exchange for continued neutral rights of peaceful maritime commerce. Illustrative of the impact industrial warfare had on rules of maritime neutrality was the infamous Baralong incident of 9 August 1915, in which a German submarine was sunk by the British Q-ship. It is argued, however, that the unrestricted manner in which World War 1 was fought was not caused by any deficiency of the known rules of maritime neutrality, per se. Instead, the essence of that war may be sought in political, chauvinistic demands for ultimate success, and an associated greed that would ultimately force neutral states to share the costs of a conflict not of their making.

It is not at all difficult to criticize the United Nations human rights programme on the grounds of inefficiency, hypocrisy, double standards and lack of imagination. But critics often tend to take a myopic view and overlook what has been achieved over a slightly longer period of time. One such development which has so far received little attention outside the small world of human rights activists and specialised diplomats is the emergence of the ‘thematic’ or issue-oriented response to human rights violations by the UN Commission on Human Rights.

The United States intervention in Grenada has been characterised by some as a rescue mission, by others an act of aggression. A study of the legality of this intervention involves broad and fundamental questions about the content and nature of international law. To what extent can the policy goals put forward by President Reagan in the above-quoted speech be consistent with the present legal system? What place do human rights considerations have in international law, and how are a state's defence needs defined? These basic questions arise in studying the US intervention in Grenada, as well as the question of the capacity of a particular individual to request military intervention in his state.