In the merits phase of decision in the case brought by Nicaragua against the United States, the World Court briefly mentions references by states or publicists to the concept of jus cogens. These expressions are used to buttress the Court’s conclusion that the principle prohibiting the use of force found in Article 2(4) of the United Nations Charter is also a rule of customary international law.

This Essay argues that trade agreements may overly constrain the ability of states to regulate supply chains for critical products such as medical supplies. Free trade agreements (FTAs) may exacerbate supply chain concentration, especially through loose rules of origin. And WTO rules constrain preventative regulation of supply chain risks designed to prevent a crisis, while providing exceptions for aggressive action only in the face of a crisis. Thus, WTO members risk flouting WTO rules if they do not limit aggressive, preventative supply chain regulation.

Well over one hundred treaties which have governed or today govern water uses in international drainage basins have been entered into all over the world. These treaties, and the negotiations leading to them, indicate that there are principles limiting the power of states to use such waters without regard to injurious effects on co-riparians.

It is now more than an academic question whether one should regard terrorism as crime or as war. The attacks mounted by the Al Qaeda organization on September 11, 2001, were of unprecedented scale, heretofore seen only in wartime, killing three thousand people in a few hours’ time. Most victims were civilians, and most were Americans, yet the dead included people from eighty-seven countries. Had the emergency evacuation of the World Trade Center towers not run efficiently, as many as twenty-five thousand more might have died.

The psychological sense that this was an act of war is founded on the extraordinary destructiveness of the act. In the past, even terrorism has evinced an implicit set of expectations—using violence to intimidate or gain publicity, targeting civilians so as to undermine the confidence placed in organized authority, but generally stopping short of this irrational magnitude of destruction. Only nihilism might seem to explain a scale of wreckage that serves no programmatic demands or political ambition.

Professor A. L. Goodhart, of Oxford, in a paper on “The Nature of International Law” indicates a field of research which has hitherto been somewhat neglected by international lawyers. He suggests that “some of the most distinguished writers on international law have not sufficiently emphasised in their definitions of international law the essential part played by the community.” This criticism does not, in our opinion, apply only to the definition of international law. None of its main issues, such as recognition, state responsibility, protection of nationals and property abroad, extradition, neutrality, intervention, or the rules of warfare, can be seen in their proper perspective if we disregard this background and the fundamental changes now taking place in the social environment which Professor Goodhart calls the “community.”

The Antarctic continent played no important part in international politics or international law before the present century,1 but scientific interest has been sustained for a much longer period. Shortly before and particularly during World War II, the strategic importance of the territory was recognized and the race to acquire new territory and to secure positions reached a new dimension of importance and urgency. The first important claim was made by Great Britain in 1908 and the last by Norway in 1939.2 Subsequent to that time several incidents have occurred, and many efforts have been made to find a reasonable solution for some of the problems of the Antarctic

On September 18, 2013, several Greenpeace activists, bearing ropes and posters, attempted to board a Gazprom oil platform, the Prirazlomnaya, in the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) of the Russian Federation. They did so in inflatable craft launched from a Greenpeace vessel, the Netherlands-flagged MV Arctic Sunrise. They were soon arrested by the Russian Coast Guard. The following day, armed agents of the Russian Federal Security Service boarded the Arctic Sunrise itself from a helicopter, arresting those on board. The Netherlands was apparently informed of Russia’s intention to board and arrest the vessel shortly after the original boarding of the platform. Over the next four days, the vessel was towed to Murmansk. Russian authorities charged the thirty detained persons (the so-called Arctic 30) with “piracy of an organized group.” Although President Vladimir Putin acknowledged that the protesters were “obviously... not pirates,” he also noted that “formally, they tried to seize our platform.” On October 4, the Netherlands announced that, under Annex VII of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), it had commenced arbitration proceedings against Russia over the detention of the Arctic Sunrise and the legality of its seizure. On October 21, the Netherlands filed with the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) a request for the prescription of provisional measures pending the constitution of the Annex VII arbitration tribunal.

The happiest outcomes of the work of the International Law Commission (ILC) result when those charged with reporting on a topic elucidate the existing law with maximum objectivity and accuracy and when, where desired, they formulate such possibilities for its avowed progressive development as find a solid basis in emerging practice or international jurisprudence and are unlikely to arouse implacable opposition among members of the Commission or member states of the General Assembly. This history should be foremost in the minds of those presently leading the Commission’s work on the immunity of state officials from foreign criminal jurisdiction as they come next session to report on possible limitations on and exceptions to such immunity. Whether the eventual aim is codification or reform, any consideration of this most controverted and combustible of contemporary questions of international law that is not based on an impartial and convincing assessment of relevant state practice and international case-law and that misreads the political temper of the times will end in tears, in the Commission itself and even more so in the Sixth Committee of the General Assembly.

The judgment in State of the Netherlands v. Urgenda Foundation marks one of the first successful challenges to climate change policy based on a human rights treaty. In this case, the Dutch Supreme Court upheld the lower court's opinion that the Netherlands has a positive obligation under the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) to take reasonable and suitable measures for the prevention of climate change. Although the Supreme Court recognized that climate change is a consequence of collective human activities that cannot be solved by one state on its own, it held that the Netherlands is individually responsible for failing to do its part to counter the danger of climate change, which, as the Court affirmed, inhibits enjoyment of ECHR rights. In reaching that conclusion, the Supreme Court determined the exact level of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction that the Netherlands is required to meet to comply with its ECHR obligation, specifically, a 25 percent reduction compared to its 1990 level by the end of 2020.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine violated the prohibition of force contained in the United Nations Charter and the peremptory norm of general international law prohibiting aggression. The invasion was not an exercise of individual or collective self-defense, or a humanitarian intervention, as Russia variously claimed. The United Nations General Assembly rejected all such claims when 141 member states voted to deplore “in the strongest terms the aggression by the Russian Federation against Ukraine in violation of Article 2 (4) of the Charter” as well as “the involvement of Belarus in this unlawful use of force against Ukraine.” This essay traces the legal implications of Russia's act of aggression, and its violations of international humanitarian law, through international criminal law, international human rights law, and the law of state responsibility. It argues that Russia violates the human rights of every person it kills, and that states are permitted and may be required to provide military assistance to Ukraine and impose economic sanctions on Russia. As Ukraine fights for its survival as an independent state, international law remains both a moral guide and a strategic asset.

The legal aspects of denial of justice and its position in the framework of international law have been expounded in a number of important works.1 Regarding the history of the doctrine, however, there appears to be no work of any importance, apart from the excellent observations of Charles De Visscher.2 This is not in any way surprising in view of the fact that the history of international law is a subject which does not receive the attention it deserves, and more particularly in view of the legend, which has been disproved in a convincing manner by James Brown Scott, that there was no system of international law prior to the days of Grotius. Yet the history of denial of justice is not only extremely interesting, but it also throws light on some of the most important institutions of modern international law.

The first session of the new United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights was held in Geneva in March 1987. The Committee was established to assist the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) in fulfilling its responsibilities for monitoring states parties’ compliance with their obligations under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. The Covenant is assuming increasing importance in view of the renewed emphasis by many UN member states on economic, social and cultural rights and because, with a total of 90 ratifications as of March 27, 1987, it now covers well over half of the total UN membership.

No other issue in recent times has so troubled our relations [with Mexico]; no other problem has so taxed our determination to seek mutually satisfactory solutions to common problems; no other problem has so tested the sincerity and ingenuity of our diplomats; and no other problem has so challenged the mutual respect and goodwill that our two countries have for each other.

The International Court of Justice has examined the seizure and detention of United States diplomats and members of their staff by a group of militant “students” in Tehran from the point of view of international law. But it is also of interest to inquire into the legal status of these acts under Islamic law, which the Islamic Republic of Iran adopted with its Constitution of 1979, and under Islamic international law, which is used here to mean that aspect of the Shari’a and its practice by Islamic countries toward other countries.

Grenada is a micro-state located in the southeastern Caribbean Sea, approximately 1600 miles from the United States. Its territory covers some 133 square miles—about twice the size of the District of Columbia—and its citizen population numbers around 110,000. Granted independence from British colonial rule in 1974, Grenada functioned under a parliamentary government until March 1979, when Maurice Bishop’s New Joint Endeavor for the Welfare, Education, and Liberation (JEWEL) Movement ousted then Prime Minister Sir Eric Gairy in a near bloodless coup. Since attaining independence, Grenada sought and secured membership in the British Commonwealth, the Organization of American States, the Caribbean Common Market and the United Nations.