The theory of command responsibility is established in the field of international humanitarian law. The practical problems for the application of the theory were especially highlighted in the General Yamashita case, decided by a United States military commission in Manila in October 1945. Defence counsel in the case stated that the theory, as relied upon by the commission, was new law at that point in time, because it asserted that criminal responsibility of a commander would arise even if he was relevant to the crimes committed by his subordinates only by reason of his capacity qua their commander.

The Convention on Jurisdiction, Applicable Law, Recognition, Enforcement and Co-operation in Respect of Parental Responsibility and Measures for the Protection of Children of 19 October 19961 is the third Hague Convention on the subject of guardianship and protection of children. It is undoubtedly the most extensive and elaborate of the three efforts, as its very title indicates. In order to understand what the 1996 Protection Convention seeks to achieve and what some of its provisions mean, it is useful to look briefly at the previous Conventions in this area.

For all its merits and shortcomings, the Peace of Westphalia is a crossroad of European history. It represents one of the very rare moments of concerted action on the part of its nations to rearrange the disarray of their jigsaw puzzle. It must be said that Europe has not exactly been blessed with such tokens of united will-power. Only three or four serious efforts are worth mentioning as having had any lasting consequence: Westphalia(1648), Vienna(1814–15), Versailles (1919) and, with some restrictions, San Francisco (1945–46).

The conflict in South Africa between the African National Congress (ANC), Pan-African Congress (PAC) and the Azanian Peoples Organisation (AZAPO), on the one side, and the apartheid government and its allies, on the other, is over. The conflict lasted from the early 1960s to the early 1990s, and during this period the international community's level of concern about the conflict steadily mounted. Attempts to apply relevant aspects of humanitarian law to the conduct of the conflict were, however, severely restricted by the attitude of the apartheid government. It erected a laager of national sovereignty, and crawled inside this domain reserve in an effort to seek sanctuary from the unwelcome intervention of international law. And, at least with respect to humanitarian law, it found sanctuary. International law provided no way of penetrating this defence in order to regulate the violence which was taking place within South Africa, and thus, in spite of the international outcry over apartheid, the apartheid government was able to ignore humanitarian law in its prosecution of the conflict.

After the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949, China abrogated all unequal treaties imposed on it by foreign countries and abolished every illegal extra-territoriality enjoyed by foreigners in China, which has created optimal conditions for the country to increase its exchanges with foreign countries independently and to begin to establish an efficient and effective conflicts law system.1 For nearly three decades, however, for various reasons China's legislative bodies did not pay sufficient attention to developing conflicts law and the academic study of the subject in China was protracted. Except for a few bilateral treaties,2 which contained a few conflict rules, one could hardly find similar provisions in the other international treaties concluded or acceded to by China. Conflict rules were absent in domestic legislation except a few rules to be found in unopened regulations and documents. After 1978, with the development of an open-door policy toward the outside world, China's domestic legislation of conflicts law was finally placed on the agenda of the domestic legislation in 1983.

Although many of the difficulties of working with the anti-discrimination principle are generally well-known infields such as employment law and social security, less is known about how the principle works and what difficulties can be encountered in practice in the field of family law. In recent times there has been an increased tendency to invoke the anti-discrimination principle in family law, not always to good effect. This article, which is based on a study of Dutch, German and European Court and Commission of Human Rights case law, explores the various practical and theoretical aspects.

Few conflicts in recent years have generated so much confusion, controversy and passion as the violent break-up of Yugoslavia. The Yugoslav wars and their aftermath have raised many questions, ranging from military-strategic issues and horrific human rights violations to international legal aspects. The General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina (GFA) is the international community's attempt to provide answers. This paper is concerned with one of those answers, in the legal-political and military sphere. It focuses on the measures of sub-regional arms control that have been established pursuant to Article IV of Annex 1-B of the GFA.

On 1 November 1998 the long-awaited revision of the supervisory mechanism of the European Convention on Human Rights (hereinafter: Convention or ECHR) will be put into effect. On that date Protocol No. 11 to the ECHR will enter into force.

This contribution will focus on conflicts of treaties in public international law. The following question will be addressed: which of two treaties should be given priority according to public international law in the case of a conflict between those two treaties?

Although it is often said that nowadays the central issue of conflicts law or private international law is to be found in the areas of jurisdiction or the recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments, rather than in the field of choice of law, in my opinion choice of law is still at its core. Choice of law, including the rationale of this area of conflicts law, is still to be considered as a separate and important subject that cannot be compared with the other areas in this field of law, because ultimately it depends on the contents of the judgments of our courts whether or not justice will be achieved between the parties. However, whether justice is achieved in a multistate case depends not only on the quality of the substantive law that has been applied, but also on the quality of the choice-of-law decision in such a case. I submit that these choice-of-law decisions are fundamental to the authority of states enforcing the law in multistate cases.

What duties of loyalty apply under Dutch law to a company's officer in respect of a business opportunity? In other words: should the officer refrain from ‘stealing’ an opportunity from the company, whereby stealing would consist of the transaction being entered into by the officer on his own behalf instead of on behalf of the company? This articles examines the answers to this question under Dutch law.

Legal assistance to the two Ad Hoc Tribunals1 is a prerequisite for their effective achievement. The obligation to provide the Tribunals with legal assistance has been outlined in the Security Council Resolutions establishing the Tribunals, the Statutes of the Tribunals, and their Rules of Procedure and Evidence.

On 10 August 1993, a child (M) was born in Drunen, the Netherlands. The mother (P) was of the Dutch nationality and the biological father (A), was of the Moroccan nationality, having been born in Morocco. From January to May 1993, P and M lived together in England as an unmarried couple. P subsequently returned to the Netherlands, where she gave birth to M. The couple was married on 9 December 1994 and resumed living together in Drunen.

On 18 September 1998, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom concluded a treaty envisaging the trial of the two Libyan suspects of the Lockerbie disaster before a Scottish Court sitting in the Netherlands.2 The initiative represents an attempt to break the stalemate resulting from, on the one hand, Libya's refusal to surrender the two suspects for trial in the United Kingdom or the United States and, on the other hand, the refusal by the United Kingdom and the United States to provide the Libyan authorities with the evidence that would have made it possible to try the suspects in Libya.