Judges are at the very centre of Anne-Marie Slaughter's influential liberal theory of international law. More than a century after liberal internationalists were making bold plans for a permanent international court, Slaughter's theory offers an alternative liberal account of the constitution of a global community of law. For Slaughter, domestic courts are responsible for enforcing a ‘new’ transnational legal order established by the interactions between citizens, corporations, and governmental agencies of increasingly disaggregated and porous states. This article challenges the role of adjudication in Slaughter's theory by unpacking the normativity inherent in her ostensibly descriptive liberalism, and identifying problems with the values and commitments at its foundation.

The last decade marked the unprecedented increase in the importance of the role of judicial bodies in the maintenance of international legal order and their assumption of hitherto unprecedented judicial powers. The principle of consent and its implications are the issues that pose major questions on possible limitations in this process. The tension between these conflicting factors has been witnessed in the treatment by the ICJ of the disputes related to the right of convicted foreign nationals to consular notification. In LaGrand, the Court made substantial advances in terms of diminishing the role of the principle of consent as an obstacle to proper judicial enforcement of international obligations. Avena – a similar case – demonstrates that such an approach has acquired an important degree of consistency in the ICJ's jurisprudence.

The Case Concerning Avena and other Mexican Nationals before the ICJ again involved violations of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. The judgment seems to be a faithful copy of the earlier LaGrand judgment, but it is much less clear. In particular the Court's consideration of diplomatic protection, the nature of Mexico's claim, and the local remedies rule pose questions with respect to the development of international law. In considering these issues, this article aims to show why the Court should have paid more attention to the legal background of the case.

Apart from giving a detailed account of the background and the factual findings in the Brðanin judgment of the ICTY, three legal aspects of the case are of interest for this case note: the acquittal of the accused of genocide charges, the trial chamber's dismissal of ‘joint criminal enterprise’ as a mode of liability to describe the accused's criminal responsibility, and the characterization of the accused's responsibility vis-à-vis crimes committed in camps and detention facilities as aiding and abetting by omission.

The ICTY has interpreted its Statute as a ‘treaty’. This was not the intention of the UN Secretariat and the Security Council, and is not consistent with other treatments of the Statute. While the Statute literally satisfies the definition of ‘treaty’ in the 1969 Vienna Convention, this shows only the generality of that definition. The adoption of more precise labels for the Statute and other multi-state instruments adopted by international organizations through representational mechanisms would avoid confusion and promote better understanding of the rules that govern them.

The United States has entered into a fairly large number of bilateral agreements with states parties to the Rome Statute in order to prevent the exposure of US nationals to the jurisdiction of the ICC. Article 98 of the Rome Statute allows for such agreements and provides that the Court should yield to obligations which emerge from those agreements. The author, however, argues that the current scope of these agreements, covering all US nationals, is too wide. They should rather take as a point of departure the status of forces agreements, which envisage primary jurisdiction for the sending state, in case of military service personnel and personnel of peacekeeping operations. In their present form, the bilateral agreements compel states parties to act in contravention of the object and purpose of the Statute.

This article offers an analytical overview of the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights on the establishment of an African human rights court, which entered into force in January 2004. The article seeks to answer the questions of whether and, if so, to what extent the Protocol strengthens the African human rights protection system.

The first Telders Competition was organized in 1977 on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the Telders International Law Students' Debating Society. Student teams from the universities of Bonn, Cologne, Strasbourg, and Leiden participated. It was so successful that the competition has been held annually ever since. Nowadays it is considered to be the most prestigious and important international moot court competition in Europe. Teams from more than 40 universities compete in the national rounds, with 22 to 25 teams from as many European countries participating in the international rounds held in the Peace Palace in The Hague.

Books and Articles in the Field of the Prevention and Peaceful Settlement of International Disputes (Autumn 2004) Compiled exclusively from materials available in the Peace Palace Libray, the Hague, by Ingrid KostConservator, Peace Palace Library, the Hague.