The proliferation of legal and normative standards regulating women's rights in conflict has been accompanied by concerns about their efficacy. The article examines the activities of the CEDAW Committee and the UN Security Council and considers how synergies might be advanced. The article finds that, while the Security Council has unique authority over UN system activities, sanctions and peacekeeping, the CEDAW Committee—as a human rights treaty monitoring body—possesses the more effective system of State accountability and the more robust commitment to women's equality and rights. The article proposes measures for the optimum interaction between both institutions in order to maximize overall accountability for women's rights in conflict.

The dyadic rule–exception structure common to many legal systems has posed particular interpretive difficulties in international trade and investment law. Adjudicators have interpreted general and security exceptions in GATT, GATS and cognate provisions of investment treaties in divergent ways, and the analytic character of these provisions is under-theorised in the literature. This article argues that we should understand exceptions from a deontological perspective as permissions that affirm governmental regulatory capacity and thus limit the scope of the commands set out in the treaty. This characterisation of exceptions has both symbolic and practical implications, of which this article discusses two: determining the exception's applicability as a preliminary matter rather than as a defence, which would in turn permit consideration of regulatory purpose at the point of obligation; and whether the applicability of an exception is properly a question of merits or jurisdiction.

The intensive debate about the legality of NATO air strikes from March to June 1999 in the context of use of force, Chapter VII competences and humanitarian intervention1 including their implication in the domestic constitutional law of NATO members,2 may be concealed another development the importance of which in modern Public International Law should not be underestimated: since the time when the Yugoslav/Serbian army left Kosovo, the province has been under direct administration by the international community.3 Only a little time later the same phenomenon of international administration came into being in East-Timor, a Portuguese colony until 1975 and claimed by Indonesia afterwards.4

The internet presents challenges for private international law. One challenge relates to jurisdiction, which is traditionally based on territory. Transactions on the internet span many borders. When cross-border wrongs are committed they may lead to transnational litigation. This article examines the circumstances in which a court can exercise jurisdiction over a foreign defendant alleged to have committed a civil wrong over the internet. Section I examines the background to jurisdiction and the internet and sets the scope of the topic. Section n gives a brief summary of the internet and its applications. Section HI examines jurisdictional rules in civil wrongs cases.The focus is on two sets of rules commonly applied around the globe: the service abroad provisions and the special jurisdiction provisions. Section IV aims to apply those jurisdictional rules to cases of wrongs committed on the internet. It advances general principles, applicable in cases of cross-border wrongs committed on the internet, relating to the place where a wrong is committed and the place where damage is suffered. Defamation has its own peculiarities and is discussed separately. The issue of whether a court can grant an injunction against a foreign defendant in respect of foreign conduct is explored. The article concludes (in Section V) that existing jurisdictional rules need not be amended in light of the internet, and offers general statements about how jurisdictional rules apply to wrongs committed on the internet.

The legal framework pertaining to the use of private armed guards protecting merchant ships from Somalia-based piracy is complex, sometimes ambiguous, and currently in a state of flux. Against the background that commercial shipping increasingly relies on Private Maritime Security Companies and that various regulatory projects on the subject matter are underway, this article sketches out what domestic and international rules govern the use of force and firearms by private armed guards on board merchant ships today. It concludes that at this juncture an effort to coordinate this legal framework is necessary, both regarding the interpretation of existing rules and the creation of new norms.

This article argues that the International Court of Justice's (ICJ) account of the customary law of environmental impact assessment (EIA) is incomplete. While acknowledging the role of the harm prevention principle in formulating the customary obligation to conduct EIAs, the ICJ has ignored the duty to cooperate, notwithstanding the latter duty's equally strong standing in international environmental law. Ignoring the duty to cooperate pushes the court towards a formal and sequential understanding of EIA, which undervalues the centrality of notice and consultation in EIA. In effect, viewed through the harm prevention lens alone, EIA is largely understood in instrumental and technical terms; whereas, if the duty to cooperate is brought back in, EIA's deliberative and ‘other-regarding’ nature is more clearly seen. This, in turn, recognises the normative and political role of EIA in structuring State interactions respecting environmental disputes.

The decision of the Appellate Committee of the House of Lords, given on 24 March 1999,1 confirms, by the impressive vote of 6 to 1, the earlier majority ruling that a former head of state enjoys no immunity in extradition or criminal proceedings brought in the United Kingdom in respect of the international crime of torture.

Section 4 of the [Immigration Ordinance 1971] effectively exiles the Ilois from the territory where they are belongers and forbids their return. But the ‘peace, order, and good government’ of any territory means nothing, surely, save by reference to the territory's population. They are to be governed, not removed. … These people are subjects of the Crown, in right of their British nationality as belongers in the Chagos Archipelago. As Chitty said in 1820, the Queen has an interest in all her subjects, who rightly look to the Crown—today, to the rule of law which is given in the Queen's name—for the security of their homeland within the Queen's dominions. But in this case they have been excluded from it. It has been done for high political reasons: good reasons, certainly, dictated by pressing considerations of military security. But they are not reasons which may reasonably be said to touch the peace, order and good government of [the British Indian Ocean Territory].1

This article is part of a larger international investigation of the effects of a country's legal origins on the style of business regulation. We employ an innovative ‘leximetric’ methodology to numerically code the protective strength of Australian corporate law for both shareholder and creditor protection for the period 1970 to 2010. This leximetric methodology has been used in a prominent international debate concerning the development of legal rules and the effects of different styles of regulation on a range of economic outcomes—the legal origins debate. Drawing on similar data compiled by Armour, Deakin, Lele and Siems in five other countries (France, Germany, India, the UK and the US) for the period 1970 to 2005, we compare changes in the level of protection afforded to Australian shareholders and creditors with developments in other countries. Our analysis finds that in Australia there was a sustained upward trend in shareholder protection, but not in the case of creditor protection. Compared to the five other countries, the level of protection afforded to shareholders under Australian law was relatively high, and this was the case for the level of protection afforded to creditors as well. We also examine the extent of convergence and divergence in shareholder and creditor protection among the countries in the study. We find persistent divergence in shareholder protection, with the extent of divergence in 2005 similar to that in 1970. For creditor protection, we find increasing divergence among the countries over the period of study. Our findings are not supportive of legal origins theory.

EU Financial responsibility resulting from investor-state arbitration is a politically sensitive topic that is currently shaping the emerging European international investment policy. What level of protection can foreign investors be granted in future EU investment treaties without compromising EU ‘policy space’? How much review of its regulatory powers by arbitral tribunals, rather than by the CJEU, is the EU willing to accept? Taking the Commission's recent draft Regulation on managing financial responsibility as the starting point, this article analyses the implications that future EU investment agreements may have for the existing safeguards balancing private and public interests in EU law. It discusses the different policy choices in the light of fears that investment treaties may affect the EU policy space. A more scientific and sustainable approach is then suggested for ensuring that future EU agreements provide sufficient clarity regarding the outer bounds of financial responsibility and criteria for liability with the aim of maximizing legal certainty for both investors and host states.

The conflict in Sierra Leone began in 1991 and still continues. It has led to over 50,000 deaths. The fighting has been characterised by the use of child combatants and widespread mutilation of civilians by amputation. When the conflict began, it would have seemed improbable that any UN response would include a forum for the trial of international crimes. After all, even the high tide of international enforcement of international criminal law, the Nuremberg International Military Tribunal, had begun to be excised from mainstream treatments of international law.1 The possibility of a permanent international criminal court had recently been revived, and sent to the International Law Commission for consideration, but the record of the ILC with controversial projects would not have led to an expectation of quick progress.2 Yet, nearly 10 years on, the UN is now involved in setting up a fourth criminal court,3 the “Special Court” for Sierra Leone. Despite the selectivity inherent in ad hoc reactions, and the continuing opposition to the Rome Statute in some quarters, it is now difficult to deny that progress is being made towards a new form of international criminal order where the improbability of prosecution for international crimes can ne longer be presumed.