The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights has a ‘historic role’ as ‘the first comprehensive international human rights instrument to be legally binding on States parties’.

Mr. Smirnov (USSR) at the 1987th meeting of the Economic and Social Council.

The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, adopted by the General Assembly on 16 December 1966, entered into force on 3 January 1976, three months after the deposit of the thirty-fifth instrument of ratification, as provided for in article 27 of the Covenant. The event has been described as “an historic event and a signal achievement of the United Nations”. The Covenant has to date been ratified or adhered to by the following 39 States: Australia, Barbados, Bulgaria, Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cyprus; Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Ecuador, Finland, German Democratic Republic, Federal Republic of Germany, Hungary, Iran, Iraq, Jamaica, Jordan, Kenya, Lebanon, Libyan Arab Republic, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritius, Mongolia, Norway, Philippines, Romania, Rwanda, Sweden, Syrian Arab Republic, Tunisia, Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, United Kingdom, Uruguay, Yugoslavia.

10 December, 1978 marked the thirtieth anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the United Nations. Anticipating this anniversary the Economic and Social Council and the General Assembly joined in recommending that a general review of existing United Nations approaches to the promotion and observance of human rights be undertaken.

The principle of the exhaustion of local remedies is generally considered to be firmly established in international law. States are said to be virtually unanimous in recognizing it. The International Court of Justice considers the local remedies rule an important principle of customary international law. The character of the principle as one of general international law is also recognized by virtually all the learned writers who have considered the question.

While there have been increasing demands for strengthening UN capacity for peacebuilding, recent peacebuilding operations under UN transitional territorial administration have obscured and downgraded the importance of normative and legal questions and have failed to address the right to self-determination in substance. It is argued that the legal issues surrounding such operations, including the legal basis for establishing transitional administrations, the legal status of the territories under administration and the legal regulations governing the powers given to UN administrators, must be contemplated in such a way as to focus fully on the internal and substantive aspects of the peoples' right to self-determination.

The year 2009 marks the entry into force of the first two EC regulations on choice of law: one on torts and other non-contractual obligations (‘Rome II’), and one on contracts (‘Rome I’). In both regulations, the need for uniform choice-of-law rules is explained, generally, in the preamble. In ‘Rome II’, various recitals specify the purposes some particular rules are meant to achieve. Apart from ambiguous statements on ‘the need to do justice in individual cases’ and the intention ‘to ensure a reasonable balance between the interests of the parties’, there are various references to the objectives of substantive law, said to be reflected in specific conflicts rules. As will be shown in this article, the ‘Rome II’ preamble promises much more than its rules can possibly deliver. Not only do most of the arguments in support of uniform conflicts rules turn out to be spurious, the policies underlying specific provisions have been translated into connecting factors that are mostly incapable of fulfilling the purposes they are meant to achieve. Since most provisions are focused on the principle of the closest connection they are obviously not inspired by the function of substantive law, nor do they allow a choice of the law best suited to the objective the rule is supposed to promote.

At p. 10 supra, it was proposed to limit the use of the term “interpretation” to the written manifestations of law, i.e., to treaty (as defined in Article 2, paragraph 1(a), of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties), certain decisions of international organizations, and certain judicial decisions. The present study is concerned with the interpretation of treaties only. With regard to unwritten agreements (not coming under the said definition of treaty), it remains to be seen whether the methods and rules of interpretation also apply to them.

The United Nations General Assembly has recently appealed to all countries to “refrain from taking any action directed at undermining the [law of the Sea] Convention or defeating its objects and purposes”. The Convention on the Law of the Sea made at Montego Bay in September 1982 took nine years to write following five years of preparatory work and covers all the major law of the sea issues; resource exploration and exploitation, navigation and overflight, conservation and pollution, fishing and shipping. The Convention has not yet entered into force and it may be some time before it does so. During that time existing international law will be augmented along the Convention lines by the national legislation of states seeking to safeguard their interests while the Convention remains inchoate. Although the aforementioned Resolution is non-binding and of recommendatory value only, it does appear to stress an existing rule of international law which has something to say about the conduct of states which have signed the Law of the Sea Convention prior to its entry into force. Article 18 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties requires that a nation, after signing a treaty, refrain from “acts which would defeat the object and purpose of a treaty” until such time as the nation indicates its intent not to ratify. The extent of the duties incumbent upon states as a result of this obligation is unclear, but the General Assembly Resolution is perhaps evidence that, as time progresses without the entry into force of the Convention, the obligation shall play a significant role in the regulation of the conduct of signatory states towards the Convention in many of the diverse areas with which it is concerned. The object of this article is to analyse one particular area of the Convention, that of the regime for the mining of the resources of the International Seabed Area under Part XI of the Convention. This throws into relief the problems which signatory states may face as they seek to legislate or take action to secure rights and to comply with duties under a Convention which is not yet in force. It may be that the citation of the duty not to defeat the object and purpose of the Convention is far more problematic in terms of a successful outcome to the negotiations than at first appeared.

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.

The ongoing maritime operations against piracy off the coast of Somalia have not only put naval enforcement against piracy at sea in the spotlight, but also the legal aftermath of what to do with pirates after their capture. While warships at sea within the current legal framework of UNCLOS and the UN Security Council amplifications specifically adopted for the case of Somalia can effectively perform their tasks, the question of what to do with the pirate suspects is still not satisfactorily resolved. As a consequence, attacks against merchant vessels and international trade run the risk of being ‘consequence free’, in which the perpetrators are not being held accountable. Participating nations are confronted with the fact that military operations against piracy, which is essentially a criminal offence, need a comprehensive approach to ensure accountability. To counter this criminal activity at sea nations try to strengthen the judicial infrastructure through national prosecution or transfer suspects for prosecution in the Horn of Africa region. As these options are not considered to be enough, and hampered by other non-legal factors, some nations call for an international court as a possible long term solution.

The new 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (hereinafter referred to as the LOS Convention) that lays down a comprehensive framework for contemporary uses of the sea, all of them playing an increasingly important role in international relations and the world's economy, may certainly be considered a major achievement in the history of international law. The Convention accomodates a great variety of political, economic and strategic interests of States in their various uses of the sea and provides a firm basis for avoiding conflicts between these uses. Quoting Arvid Pardo, it is ‘truly a “package deal” containing innumerable bilateral and multilateral political compromises’.

On 13 October 2005, the International Criminal Court (ICC) Pre-Trial Chamber II unsealed the warrants of arrest for five senior leaders of the Lord's Resistance Army/Movement (LRA/M) for crimes against humanity and war crimes committed in Uganda since July 2002. While these warrants were yet to be executed, the Ugandan government entered negotiations with the LRA/M rebels. As a result Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni, disregarding the ICC arrest warrants, announced a ‘total amnesty’ for the LRA combatants in July 2006 on the condition that the rebels renounced terrorism and accepted peace. Following the amnesty offer, an agreement on cessation of hostilities between the Ugandan government and the LRA/M was concluded with effect from 29 August 2006. This article considers the question whether a ‘total amnesty’ to individuals indicted by the ICC may be binding upon the ICC.

Although the Millennium Development Goals, declared by the General Assembly in the Millennium Declaration in 2000, do not refer specifically to energy, in reality none of the goals can be attained without universal access to modern energy services. Recent reports from the United Nations have drawn attention to the link between energy and poverty, and have shown that the access to modern energy services is essential for lifting peoples out of poverty and fundamentally improving their quality of life on an everyday basis.

This article examines the nature and magnitude of the situation in less developed states lacking universal access to modern energy services and considers the current, limited national and international law in this area. The article then argues that it is international law that must play the major role in ensuring that universal access to energy services is realized. It considers what type of international instrument might best serve the purpose of achieving progress in improving modern energy services for those in poverty. Finally, the article provides a draft of such an instrument, together with an explanatory commentary, as a prototype of the steps that could be taken by the international community to achieve progress in this area if there is sufficient political will.

Article 16 is one of the most contested provisions of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. It authorizes the Security Council to suspend the Court's investigations and prosecutions for a renewable period of twelve months, but does not define the circumstances under which the Council should issue a deferral. In 2013, Kenya and the African Union requested the Council to postpone the trials of President Kenyatta and Vice-President Ruto, but without success. Like with previous deferral requests, such as for President Al-Bashir, the international community turned out to have very different ideas about when Article 16 should be invoked. In light of the unsuccessful deferral requests of African states as well as the ongoing debate about the Court's complicated relationship with the Council, this paper examines the legal and political threshold of Article 16. The first part of the paper provides an overview of the conditions and consequences of a valid deferral, and discusses the four references that the Council has made to Article 16. The second part deconstructs the existing disagreement within the international community on when the Council should use its deferral powers.

This paper examines whether Turkey should be considered under international law as the ‘continuing’ state of the Ottoman Empire or whether it should instead be deemed as a ‘new’ state. This question of ‘state identity’ is central to any discussion on Turkey's responsibility for internationally wrongful acts committed by the Ottoman Empire against the Armenian population before its disintegration. We will analyse some of the criteria that have been used in international law to determine whether two entities are in fact ‘identical’. We will focus on one determinant factor: whether what is left of a state's territory following a significant reduction in its size is the ‘essential’ part of the state (or its nucleus) that existed before its disintegration. This paper also analyse the capital role that recognition by other states plays on matters of state identity and continuity. Finally, we will examine several provisions of the Lausanne Treaty, two international arbitration cases (Ottoman Public Debt case, 1925; Lighthouse Arbitration case, 1956) and a Dutch municipal court decision (1925) all dealing with the question of continuity between the Ottoman Empire and Turkey.

The launching of the African Union on 9 July 2002 marked the turning of a new page in Africa's modern history. This is especially significant in the context of efforts by African nations to achieve deeper political unity and economic integration. The Constitutive Act of the African Union was adopted barely nine months after the adoption of the Sirte Declaration on 9 September 1999, by which African leaders decided to reorient the objectives of the Organization of African Unity to accelerate African integration as a pillar of the continent's collective response to the challenge of globalization. This article argues that while the speedy elaboration, adoption and ratification of the Act demonstrated the collective desire of African countries to accelerate the process of integration, this rush inadvertently precluded a serious debate on the nature and scope of integration entailed in the project of the African Union. The result was the adoption of a document regarded by some of its own signatories, for varied reasons, as an instrument lacking in substance and limited in its scope. These perceived inadequacies have necessitated the early amendment of the Act. However, it is argued here that these amendments will do nothing to hasten the pace of African political unity or economic integration, as they are largely symbolic. They do not deal with the substantive lacunae identified in the Act.

The duty or obligation not to infringe constitutionally protected fundamental human rights which have hitherto been owed by state organs towards individuals may now have been extended, in certain countries, to encompass relationships between individuals. This particular development – also referred to as an issue relating to “third parties (Drittwirkung)” or alternatively as one concerning the “horizontal” or “intersubjective” application of fundamental human rights – appears to have its origins in the German doctrine of the so-called “absolute effect of human rights”, whereby fundamental human rights which are defined in constitutions are considered to be enforceable by individuals against other private persons as well as by public authorities.

China has long supported the establishment of a permanent international criminal court, but it cast a negative vote at the end of the Rome conference in 1998 due to certain concerns that had not been addressed to its satisfaction. The specific Chinese concerns regarding the Rome Statute to some extent echo China's traditional position with respect to international judicial bodies. This article investigates the ways in which China has characterized the International Criminal Court (ICC) as a human rights court of the traditional kind. It examines the substance of the articulated Chinese concerns regarding the ICC in light of China's engagement with international judicial bodies, and some of the traditional concerns that have had an impact on that engagement. This article argues that the ICC is distinct from the UN human rights treaty bodies, and that China's progressively wider engagement with international adjudication should not be hindered by putting the ICC in a ‘human rights box’.

The main parts of the new patrimonial law in the new Civil Code (referred to below as NBW) entered into force in the Netherlands with effect from 1 January 1992. Owing to the system designed for the transitional law, the provisions of most importance in practice (e.g., those concerning general conditions and the sale of goods) did not enter into force fully until 1 January 1993. It seemed to the editors of this journal to be a good idea to provide foreign readers with a survey of the main points of the NBW, since the ‘new’ law is now also being applied both in the courts and in legal practice, albeit sometimes rather uncertainly. I was kindly asked to provide this survey and am now pleased to accede to the request.

In contrast with the vast specialized literature on the application of the rule of exhaustion of local remedies in contemporary experiments on the international protection of human rights, comparatively very little has been written on the place of the local remedies rules in earlier international law experiments granting procedural status to individuals. It may in fact be asked to what extent was the application of the local redress rule in those earlier experiments taken into due account by the draftsmen of present-day human rights instruments and procedures. The present study purports to examine the multiplicity of solutions given to the problem of exhaustion of local remedies in international experiments in the first half of the twentieth century.

Without rules on maritime delimitation in marine spaces where the jurisdiction of coastal states overlaps, the legal uses of these spaces cannot be enjoyed effectively. In this sense, the international law of maritime delimitation is of central importance. There is no doubt that international courts and tribunals play an important role in developing the international law of maritime delimitation. Hence it is important to analyze the development of case law in this field. This article examines the maritime delimitation between Romania and Ukraine in the Black Sea before the International Court of Justice. After reviewing the delimitation process in the Romania/Ukraine case, this article will address three principal issues: methodology of maritime delimitations, baseline issues and questions concerning the disproportionality test.