Professor Rolin discusses the content of the Indonesian Nationalization Act and the Decrees for its implementation, and notes, inter alia, the following:

that the taking is confined to Netherlands enterprises, the implementing Decrees leaving open the possibility that it will not be restricted to property within Indonesia;

that the contemplated compensation does not represent the value of the enterprises, because it will evidently consist of only a part of the revenue from them, and that the payment of this compensation is deferred until some future date as yet unspecified.

It is also clearly indicated that the motive for the taking is “the struggle for the liberation of Western New Guinea”. According to official statements, the payment of compensation will also depend on there being a settlement satisfactory to Indonesia of the dispute over Western New Guinea. The taking is therefore an unfriendly, or even hostile act in reply to the attitude adopted by the Netherlands with regard to Western New Guinea.

This article focuses on a number of recent decisions of English courts addressing issues of international law. The starting point is the House of Lords decision in Kuwait Airways v. Iraqi Airways (2002) that effect would not be given in English law to a decree of the Iraqi state which breached international law. Subsequent decisions exploring the role of international law in the context of the justiciability of UK state action have failed to follow Kuwait Airways' lead unless required to apply international law by statute, usually the Human Rights Act 1998. Cases involving terrorism and human rights and attacks on the UK's stance and involvement in Iraq have revealed further questions about the role of international law in English courts and elsewhere. The article examines how subtle movement is taking place in the approach taken by English judges to matters of international law particularly in the context of human rights but that executive action in foreign affairs remains largely immune from judicial scrutiny.

The Convention relating to the arrest of seagoing ships entered into force for the Netherlands on 20 July 1983. Its purpose is, first of all, to limit the possibility of arrest to maritime claims, as summed up in Article 1 (inter alia, claims arising from: collisions, salvage, carriage, wages, mortgage). In addition, Article 7 grants jurisdiction on the merits to the courts of the country where the arrest was made, if the domestic law of that country so provides, or in any of six situations enumerated in that Article.

War zones have long ceased to be a novelty, but they remain a legal enigma. Although existing for almost a century, the issue remains unsettled, feeding prolonged legal speculation. The question of the legality of war zones typifies the kind of legal controversies with which a potential codification attempt for the laws of naval warfare will have to cope. The problem arises when an antiquated body of law intersects proliferating State practice which runs contrary to its dictates, when new realities come to upset fundamental principles of humanitarian law.

This casenote outlines and analyses the US Supreme Court's 2006 decision in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld. In this case the Court held that suspected terrorists held in Guantánamo Bay were entitled to bring habeas corpus petitions to federal courts and to the benefits of the Uniform Code of Military Justice and Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions. The US Supreme Court eschewed the tradition of judicial deference to overturn the President's determination that military commissions could be established without congressional approval in the circumstances of the ‘War on Terrorism’. The casenote goes on to consider the aftermath of this decision, including the introduction of the Military Commissions Act 2006, and the implications of this Act for the future of Guantánamo Bay litigation.

In the following pages I intend to survey the judgments of the International Court of Justice pronounced in the course of 1959.

Owing to the differing degrees of importance from the legal point of view of the individual cases dealt with, their discussion will necessarily vary in length and thoroughness.

The current transformation process of the American conflict of laws system from a traditional “hard-and-fast” body of jurisdiction-selecting rules to a modern method of functional analysis has raised a widespread wave of interested, diverse and, more often than not, critical reactions. Criticism to the new approach is particularly strong outside the United States and especially in the civil law countries where a certain number of established scholars tend to reject the functional methods as a rudely disguised way of always applying the forum law. Be that as it may –and a closer first hand examination of its doctrinal and jurisprudential sources may discover that the functional analysis is indeed an intelligent and sophisticated method of dealing with choice of laws problems—the fact is that American courts are increasingly applying the language and the substance of the new approach to solve both interstate and international conflicts. The following selective examination of some of these latter cases permits us to illustrate how the functional analysis actually works in practice and to evaluate to what extent this new approach might also be operative as a method of solving international conflict of laws.

The purpose of this lecture is to identify and investigate two things: (1) the centre of the intellectual activity described in its title as the defining and development of international law, and (2) the fundamental concept around which both defining and development revolve. The centre as indicated will be found to consist of (representatives of) what is to be called the three “legal archetypes”. The fundamental concept alluded to is the “normative concept of law”. The two notions are, of course, highly abstract as compared to the realities they are designed to help understand. They will be set forth as clearly as possible within the strict limits of this lecture, although it is realized that a truly satisfactory treatment cannot be imagined outside a full-size methodology. An apology beforehand is, therefore, in place. One particular question relating to the normative concept of law in international relations will be dealt with in some detail: it has to do with “tragedy in law” as resulting from the clash between competing normative concepts. As a final observation, the need for a maximum degree of flexibility in the international lawyer's way of thought will be stressed.

The market impact of the Convention on civil litigation in the six original Member States was a matter of concern with several speakers. It was stressed in particular that the mere solution of jurisdictional problems may require extensive research of substantive issues, which possibly could lead to litigation at three national levels. If the possibility of submitting preliminary questions under the 1971 Protocol to the EC Court at Luxemburg is also taken into account, five judgments could even be required to settle the question which court in the Common Market is competent. Although perhaps inspiring lawyers' intellectual efforts, this situation would unfortunately increase the litigation costs to the parties. Moreover, the final text of the EC Draft on the law applicable to contractual and non-contractual obligations is progressing and the EC Court will be charged with ensuring the uniform interpretation of this convention as well. One can imagine questions being put to the European Court in each of the three stages of a dispute, viz., the jurisdiction phase, the applicable law, and the enforcement in another Member State.