The central issue that dominates the study of the international law of human rights is that of enforcement. The presumption is that even though States draft and ratify treaties binding themselves, as a matter of international law, to the protection and promotion of human rights, there are no real reciprocal benefits to be derived from compliance such that it is unrealistic to expect States to carry out those obligations in good faith. Hence, the study of the international law of human rights has tended to focus primarily upon the work of the various human rights treaty bodies which undertake supervisory roles over the implementation of the treaty obligations.

In spite of the startling technological strides in the field of weapons, and the resultant capability for nations to wage a ‘push-button‘ war, small arms still feature prominently in international conflict. Whilst it could not be reasonably claimed that most casualties in modern, mechanised war result from the use of small arms, these weapons still make a significant contribution to the carnage, especially in today's low intensity warfare. ‘In Vietnam, half of the US casualties were to bullets, mostly fired by small arms’. Small arms have found some employment in every international conflict, major and minor.

The magnitude and seriousness of the environmental consequences of the 1990–1991 Iraq-Kuwait War, have raised a variety of legal questions concerning the validity, effectiveness and interpretation of applicable principles and rules of international law.

Radioactive waste is not at present, at least officially, dumped at sea or disposed of into the seabed. At the regional level, several treaties prohibit such disposal. At the global level, the dumping at sea of high-level radioactive waste and the disposal of all radioactive waste in Antarctica, including the ocean areas south of 60 degrees south latitude, are prohibited by international law. The dumping at sea of low-level radioactive waste and the sub-seabed disposal of all radioactive waste (hereinafter also referred to as the ocean disposal options), at the global level, are subject to legally non-binding and temporary suspensions or moratoria. It is thus that the ocean disposal options remain on the international agenda and that the permissibility of using these options remains an issue of debate.

‘There are estimated to be some 300 million indigenous people in 70 countries around the world. Among the most defenceless of all the victims of human rights violations, they have paid a terrible price for contact with the dominant society. They have been massacred and terrorized to force them from their ancestral lands, caught up in bitter civil conflicts and left without redress for the abuses they suffer. Their supporters have also suffered human rights violations. The United Nations has designated 1993 as the International Year of the World's Indigenous People. The International Year will be commemorated at the UN World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna this June. Amnesty International is calling on governments of countries where indigenous people reside to initiate an independent national review in 1993 of the extent to which indigenous peoples' fundamental human rights are respected. 1992 was the 500th anniversary of the arrival of Europeans in the Americas. While official commemorations were held throughout the region, indigenous groups, backed by human rights organizations, used the occasion to publicize the violations, the discrimination and the displacement that indigenous peoples have suffered. Yet despite the publicity and the focus on the plight of indigenous people, it appears that governments in the Americas have taken few practical steps to protect indigenous rights. Unless the international community takes urgent steps, there is a real danger that the UN's International Year will also pass without any significant progress towards protecting the human rights of indigenous peoples throughout the world.

The parties to an investment agreement, i.e., a State or its controlled enterprise and a foreign private entity, often fail to reach an agreement as to the substantive law applicable to any dispute that may arise during the course of their contractual relationship. Sometimes, such disagreement occurs owing to the conflicting interests of the parties. As a distinguished jurist has aptly put it:

‘While the host State is primarily interested in subjecting foreign investments to its national legal system because it wishes to retain the fullest legislative freedom in pursuance of its national economic policies, the foreign investor is primarily interested in excluding the application of the law of the host State because he fears that the host State may use its sovereign legislative power to change the legal environment to the detriment of his investment.’

For one hundred years, the Netherlands has been the host country of the Hague Conference on Private International Law. The Dutchman Tobias Asser—attorney, Professor of law at the University of Amsterdam, diplomat, and an indefatigable proponent of international legal cooperation—was not only one of its founders, but also chairman of the first four conferences in 1893,1894,1900 and 1904. He was succeeded by B.C.J. Loder, a former member of the Dutch Hoge Raad (Supreme Court), who was chairman in 1925 and 1928. Since then, all of Asser's successors have been prominent Dutch conflicts scholars: J. Offerhaus, L.I. de Winter and J.C. Schultsz. In this light, it would be surprising if the conventions created by the Hague Conference had no impact on the development of Dutch private international law, or, conversely, if Dutch conflicts theory had not influenced the debates in the Peace Palace.

In 1967, on the occasion of the hundredth anniversary of the Confederation, the author of this paper suggested that it was about time for Canada to join the Hague Conference on Private International Law. Such a move would show to everyone that Canada's legal horizons and objectives had become world wide. The government of the day followed this suggestion and, in 1968, Canada joined the Conference. Since that time, Canada has participated actively in its work as well as that of other international organizations devoted to the unification of law especially in the area of commercial law. It is, therefore, appropriate to examine recent trends in the field of private international law in Canada on the occasion of the hundredth anniversary of the Hague Conference and to ascertain the extent to which Canadian rules have been influenced by its conventions.

The work performed by the Hague Conference since 1893, the date of its foundation, has had an undoubted effect on private international law in France and in the following pages I shall try to give some examples of this.

In Sweden, private international law started to develop as an area of law in the late nineteenth century. The Hague Conference on Private International Law played a decisive role in this development. As late as in the 1960s, most Swedish private international law legislation, with the exception of rules originating in the inter-Nordic co-operation in this field, was based on Hague Conventions ratified by Sweden.