This article uses the first issue of the American Journal of International Law, one hundred years after its creation in 1907, to analyse the state of American international legal thought following the acquisition of Pacific and Caribbean island territories in the Spanish–American War and the creation of a new international identity. Traditionally, the American Society of International Law (of which the journal was the organ) has been placed in the context of the US peace movement. However, both the society and the journal were led by individuals occupying major positions in the administration of Theodore Roosevelt and earlier administrations, including the sitting and a former secretary of war. The society and its journal were vehicles of the US foreign policy establishment. Despite a mixture of imperialists and anti-imperialists, a cultural coherence is discernable in the journal's pages. In essence, the journal can be placed within what the article calls the genteel tradition of US international law, involving an effort at educating the public away from over-excitement, adopting science in the newly professionalized administrative state, and advocating an arbitrational model of legal ordering to promote international peace.

This paper argues that the concept of the civilian is a specific way of viewing non-combatants that can be traced to the First World War. Before the war, non-combatants were seen by the law and the prevailing culture as citizens. The citizen was potentially and probably aggressive, bound to the fate of his or her state and, therefore, granted only minimal protection by law. The war, however, brought technological changes and a propaganda effort that transformed these citizens into a civilian population. Civilians were essential to the war effort, which meant that they were a target. Yet, at the same time, they were feminized, described as vulnerable and deserving of protection. This cultural shift influenced the way in which the laws of war were understood, leading to the replacement of the traditional categories of law with a military/civilian distinction in the 1923 Hague Draft Rules of Aerial Warfare. In this way the concept of the civilian entered international law.

This article considers the suitability of employing particular modes of imputed criminal liability in trials before international criminal tribunals. It focuses specifically on the doctrines of joint criminal enterprise and superior responsibility, two forms of liability which are central to many contemporary international criminal proceedings. Both doctrines can involve a broad form of criminal liability which may not be entirely appropriate when one considers the context in which such trials take place and the significance which often attaches to them. Proponents of international justice have contended that the contribution of these trials goes beyond basic accountability and providing justice for victims, extending also to peacemaking, reconciliation, deterrence, and the creation of a historical record. This article queries whether aspects of joint criminal enterprise liability and superior responsibility are appropriate when international justice is viewed in this light.

This article is intended to be a report of the oral proceedings in the Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Bosnia and Herzegovina v. Serbia and Montenegro), detailing what took place in the Peace Palace and considering the arguments of the parties relating to the procedure adopted in the proceedings. These include the preliminary question of whether or not the International Court of Justice has jurisdiction in the case, a question which has been reopened by Serbia and Montenegro following the 2004 judgment in the Legality of the Use of Force cases; the question of the impact of the workings of the ICTY on the current proceedings; the issue of new documents which has arisen, given the very long gap between the written and oral proceedings; the burden and standard of proof adopted by the Court and what inferences it may draw; and the methodology for hearing witness testimony in the Court. Each of the parties addressed the Court on these procedural issues in some detail, in addition to their pleadings on the substance of the merits of the case.

This article examines the possibility of creating a law of armed conflict that could be uniformly applied to both international and non-international armed conflict. The article looks at the history of modern armed conflict, and charts the progression of warfare from a predominantly interstate event to that which is more likely to be characterized as non-international or internal. The increasing prevalence of non-international armed conflicts throughout the twentieth century has lead to ongoing moves on behalf of the international community to bring the regulation of such conflicts further within the ambit of international regulation. With this in mind, the article argues that such moves have blurred the historical distinction between types of armed conflict to the point where the distinction could be eliminated altogether. By looking at international treaties, tribunals, and state practice, this article asserts that the law of armed conflict could be uniformly applied, with the aim of ensuring that all participants in armed conflict are equally and humanely treated.

In late 2005 the Assembly of States Parties adopted the Code of Professional Conduct for Counsel of the International Criminal Court. Article 22 of the Code contains a provision on fee splitting which does not go as far as to place a positive duty on counsel to report such practices to the Registrar. This essay revisits this approach in the light of the practice of the ad hoc tribunals, the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights, and existing norms in domestic legislation. It argues that the lawyer–client privilege is not absolute. Accordingly, the ICC should make it obligatory – through specific empowering clauses – for lawyers to advise their clients about the prohibition of the practice of fee splitting and to report the incident to the Registrar forthwith, notwithstanding any claim of privilege.

This article argues that in passing Resolution 1540, the UN Security Council has confused the proper scope of its enforcement powers under Chapter VII with the proper scope of its long unused, limited, lawmaking powers under Article 26. It has thereby taken to itself by unilateral exercise of its Chapter VII powers a role which, under the Charter system, it is to share with both the General Assembly, in the exercise of its Article 11(1) powers, and the general membership of the United Nations, to whom it is directed under Article 26 to submit proposals for the creation of new international laws in the area of weapons proliferation.

Books and Articles in the Field of the Prevention and Peaceful Settlement of International Disputes (Winter 2006). Compiled by Ingrid Kost exclusively from materials available at the Peace Palace Library, The Hague