This paper assesses whether English law recognizes a concept of negotiorum gestio. Claimants intervening in other' affairs and seeking restitution or reimbursement of expenses are often labeled ‘officious’, and disallowed relief. That, however, gives a misleading impression of English law. English law does recognize a concept of negotiorum gestio, which while very different to that found in German law, has parallels to versions found in other Civilian systems. It provides a cause of action to recover the intervenor's expenses, and any loss suffered during the intervention. It also provides a defence to the intervenor's intentional torts, although negligent intervenors will remain liable for their negligence

This paper considers under what circumstances, and for what reasons, an international tribunal may want to range beyond the primary text of a treaty to determine its ‘correct’ meaning; such extraneous legal material potentially including rules of customary international law, other treaties between the parties, general principles of law, and documents of a ‘soft law’ nature. The paper suggests a variety of ‘mechanisms’ by which a tribunal may undertake a broader interpretative approach, though all ultimately raise the same inevitable tension between accusations of judicial activism and counter-arguments of inflexibility and insularity. Nevertheless, many tribunals and individual judges continue to utilize such techniques, particularly noticeable in some recent environmental disputes. The paper will conclude with a note of caution; that though such interpretations are becoming an increasingly significant part of modern judicial decision-making—something that is generally to be welcomed—tribunals must concurrently take care to ensure that they remain within the accepted parameters of the adjudicative function.

Until relatively recently the question of whether it is possible to get damages for breach of an exclusive jurisdiction clause was very rarely considered by the courts and had attracted little academic interest. But when considered alongside recent developments in cases covered by the Brussels regime, the subject becomes of potentially much greater practical significance. The main purpose of this article is to consider how the newly developing common law principles might apply in that context.

On 14 December 2004, Australia announced the institution of a ‘Maritime Identification Zone’, extending 1000 nautical miles from its coast and involving the identification of vessels seeking to enter Australian ports, as well as vessels transiting Australia' Exclusive Economic Zone. This Article analyses the legality of these security measures under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, new developments through the International Maritime Organization and the Proliferation Security Initiative. The implications of prescribing and enforcing identification requirements on the high seas and in the EEZ, the impact on maritime boundaries and avenues for dispute settlement are all explored.

This article considers how armed opposition groups fighting in an internal armed conflict are bound by the rules of international humanitarian law despite not being party to the relevant treaties. It assesses a number of explanations—customary international law, general principles of international humanitarian law, rules governing treaties and third parties and claims to succession—and argues that each has limited value. The ability of the state to legislate on behalf of all its individuals is considered the best explanation. This principle is explored and objections to it are countered. This article also examines the expressed commitment of armed opposition groups to the rules of international humanitarian law.

State immunity is highly unusual among established areas of public international law in that it has been created and developed largely through cases in national courts and through national legislation. In sharp contrast to diplomatic and consular privileges and immunities, the role of reciprocity and of diplomatic negotiation in shaping the rules of state immunity has been rather limited. While national courts have purported to apply these rules as international law, they have inevitably viewed them within the frame-work of the constitutional approach taken by the particular national legal order to rules of international law and they have looked to earlier national precedents rather than to cases in other jurisdictions. In consequence, cross-fertilization has been rather limited and the process of response by national courts to the changing functions of States in the modern world has been painfully slow. Over the past 30 years, the uncertainties and inadequacies of leaving state immunity rules to national courts has been addressed mainly through national statutes—but while the draftsmen and legislators have paid careful attention to other statutes and tried to follow their best features, this process has compounded the perception of the courts that state immunity is an area of national law, to be interpreted and refined at national level.

The Convention on State Immunity adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2004 represents in treaty form a finished product of some 22 years of work 1 It indicates a consensus of State support for the restrictive doctrine of State immunity in its application to civil proceedings relating to commercial matters in national courts. It is a considerable achievement from the view point of the specialist lawyers and diplomats who have steered the project to UN endorsement.

The eventual product of the International Law Commission's (ILC) work on state immunity hasbeen in the form of a Convention. This prompts the question whether widespread ratification (or accession etc) will be necessary for clear rules of international law on state immunity to become firmlyestablished or whether a substantial codifying effect could be achieved even if the Convention does not attract a great number of parties. The latter has sometimes been said of much of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. As the law on state immunity has undergone much of its substantial development by practice of national courts (albeit that the piecemeal adoption and implementation of treaties has played some part), could this process not simply continue with the Convention providing guidance or a model? If the trend from absolute to restrictive immunity could occur by development of customary law, are there not still adequate means of consolidating customary law without the need for states actually to become parties to the treaty?

The United Kingdom (UK) signed the UN Convention on Jurisdictional Immunities of States and their property (Convention) less than a year after it was adopted by the UN General Assembly.1 The signature came only a few months after an open, but not well publicized, consultation with academics and society,2 and several months before a crucial appeal, in which the Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs is a party, is heard by the House of Lords of a decision permitting a civil suit to proceed against foreign government officials for torture committed abroad.3 Despite the signature, the UK has not yet announced whether it will ratify the Convention and, if so, whether it intends to do so with an understanding, declaration or reservation.4 As discussed below, it appears that the Convention might preclude victims of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, torture and other crimes under international law, as well as other human rights violations, committed abroad from recovering civil reparations in UK courts against states or their current of former officials or agents. In the light of the numerous ambiguities in the Convention and the risk that it will be interpreted by national courts as barring such reparations in those courts, the UK should not ratify it until a protocol is adopted expressly guaranteeing victims and their families the right to recover reparations in such cases.

The United Nations Convention on Jurisdictional Immunities of States and Their Property was adopted by the UN General Assembly on 2 December 2004.1 The General Assembly recorded, in the first paragraph of its resolution adopting the Convention, its ‘deep appreciation to the International Law Commission and the Ad Hoc Committee on jurisdictional Immunities of States and their Property for their valuable work on the law of jurisdictional immunities of States and their property’. Whatever view one takes as to the merits of the Convention text or the prospects of its success,2 it cannot be doubted that this acknowledgment was well deserved—it is, if anything, an understatement to describe the conclusion of a detailed international instrument on state immunity, embodying the restrictive theory of immunity, as a ‘diplomatic triumph’.

The General Assembly first proposed that the International Law Commission look into the issue of state immunity in 1977. As State immunity, by its very nature, sits at the interface between traditional and contemporary notions of international law, the span of the negotiations over three decades inevitably exposed the resulting Convention to gaps and inconsistencies with evolving areas of international law. In 1999 the International Law Commission established a Working Group on Jurisdictional immunities of States and their property,

On 30 June 2005 a Convention to respect choice of court agreements was finally born. The Hague Convention on Choice of Court Agreements aspires to be parallel to the New York Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards (1958) (‘New York Convention’). The exception is that if an equally broadly accepted convention exists with respect to choice of court agreements,1 business parties will have an alternative to choosing arbitration in their contracts. If they have the assurance that a judgement will be recognized and enforced in a large number of States, some might be more inclined to insert a choice of court clause instead of an arbitration clause. This assumption has been confirmed by ICC research.2

The Surveys of the law of the free movement of goods carried in the Quarterly since 1989 have followed a largely consistent pattern. The Court's case law interpreting the nature and purpose of Article 28's legislative institutions. The readier the Court is to treat national measures as barriers to trade, the deeper the incursion of EC law into national regulatory autonomy. And vice versa. The Wider the scope allowed to the possibility to justify barriers to trade, the more room for manoeuvre is handed back to national regulatory autonomy—and the more weight is placed on the process of legislative harmonization or, increasingly, other forms of policy coordination at EC level as the way to advance integration. And vice versa. All these trends are in view in the period covered by this survey. The complex institutional rhythms reveal that the creation of the internal market was not a short-term project that was completed in 1992, nor even an enterprise that gently begged to have a few loose ends tidied up before being triumphantly pronounced historical fact. In reality the internal market, as an exercise in creating a unified economic space underpinned by a constitutionalized system of supra-State legal rules in a politically fragmented but interdependent environment, is one manifestation of the extraordinary exercise in multi-level governance which is evolving in Europe. Systems of this complexity do not stop fluctuating; ‘free’ markets are politically contested.

Agriculture continues to maintain a very high profile in the Community, notwithstanding calls that the sector should occupy a place commensurate with its overall contribution to the economy. Such calls grew yet stronger during the United Kingdom Presidency from July to December 2005. Indeed, shortly before the United Kingdom assumed the Presidency, Tony Blair stated that [i]t simply does not make sense, in this new world, for Europe to spend over 40 per cent of its budget on the common agricultural policy, representing 5 per cent. of the EU population producing less than 2 percent. of Europe's output.’1 In similar vein, there has been trenchant criticism of the extent to which agriculture has dominated the Doha Development Round negotiations under the auspices of the World Trade Organization (‘WTO’). For example, Commissioner Mandelson has expressed ‘a real fear that a continuing overnegotiation and overbidding in agriculture will stymite the progress we urgently need to demonstrate across the range of the talks’.2

Social policy is undergoing review, the aim being to consolidate the fragmented nature of social policy law, and to provide for the integration of all Community policies. This is part of a larger where the EU is attempting to provide a holistic approach towards all policies, ensuring that they meet the demands placed upon governments, as well as private undertakings, in the enlarged single market. Of particular significance is the interaction between social policy law and competition law, especially in relation to state aid and merger policy. The Lisbon Process, now at mid-term, has not been successful in delivering the projected results. Thus throughout 2005 the European Union focused upon revitalizing the Lisbon agenda with the focus upon improving the quality of work as well as combating unemployment.1