Academics, practitioners and international and national courts are increasingly seeking to identify and interpret international law by engaging in comparative analyses of various domestic court decisions. This emerging phenomenon, which I term ‘comparative international law’, loosely fuses international law (as a matter of substance) with comparative law (as a matter of process). However, this comparative process is seriously complicated by the ambiguous role that national court decisions play in the international law doctrine of sources, under which they provide evidence of the practice of the forum State as well as being a subsidiary means for determining international law. This article analyses these dual, and sometimes conflicting, roles of national courts and the impact of this duality on the comparative international law process.

Article 8 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights sets out a right to data protection which sits alongside, and in addition to, the established right to privacy in the Charter. The Charter's inclusion of an independent right to data protection differentiates it from other international human rights documents which treat data protection as a subset of the right to privacy. Its introduction and its relationship with the established right to privacy merit an explanation. This paper explores the relationship between the rights to data protection and privacy. It demonstrates that, to date, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has consistently conflated the two rights. However, based on a comparison between the scope of the two rights as well as the protection they offer to individuals whose personal data are processed, it claims that the two rights are distinct. It argues that the right to data protection provides individuals with more rights over more types of data than the right to privacy. It suggests that the enhanced control over personal data provided by the right to data protection serves two purposes: first, it proactively promotes individual personality rights which are threatened by personal data processing and, second, it reduces the power and information asymmetries between individuals and those who process their data. For these reasons, this paper suggests that there ought to be explicit judicial recognition of the distinction between the two rights.

Legal scholars approach law in many ways. They are dedicated to various trends such as ‘law as rules’, ‘law as system’, ‘law as culture’, ‘law as tradition’, ‘law as social fact’, ‘law in context’, ‘law and history’, ‘law and economics’, and ‘law and legal theory’. Most comparative lawyers also are aligned to these trends. Some of the trends share belief in the reality of mobility of law, seeing law reform to be partly related to choice from pools of models supplied from a number of legal systems. There is, however, disquiet as to the appropriateness of the phenomenon of ‘legal transplants’ as the predominant explanation of law reform. The disquiet is related both to this mode of law reform and to the conceptual frame suggested by the terminology. It is said that law reform should be from within, and that since a transplanted institution continues to live on in its old habitat as well as having been moved to a new one, the choice of the word ‘transplant’ is inappropriate.1

The protection of foreign investment by way of treaties and arbitration has recently suffered attacks on its legitimacy. The article turns on human rights concerns in this context and analyses what legal mechanisms and arguments can be employed to ease the tension between investment protection and human rights. Harmonization in this regard finds two key entry points: first, at the inter-State level of investment agreements, and secondly, at the intra-State level of the foreign investment contract. At the first level, human rights considerations, particularly concerning economic and social rights, can be brought to bear by way of their systematic integration qua treaty interpretation. The article subjects this inroad to close scrutiny but concludes that, while it possesses considerable merits and has attracted a certain attention (albeit still more in the academic world than in that of arbitration practice), it remains an approach ex post, possibly leaving excessive discretion to arbitrators. Thus, at the second level, already at the pre-investment stage, efforts should be made to recast investors' “legitimate expectations” under foreign investment contracts by including a “human rights audit” as part of the due diligence to be conducted by the investor and the host State, to survey the host State's human rights treaty commitments and domestic methods for implementing these commitments. The primary objective of this audit would thus be to fully include the prospective host State's international obligations as part of the body of applicable law and thus create a better map of the landscape of an investor's “legitimate expectations”.

The Annual Digest of Public International Law Cases—the ancestor of the International Law Reports—was first published “under the direction” of the Department of International Studies of the London School of Economics. The “chief inspirers”, to use Fitzmaurice's phrase, were Arnold McNair and Hersch Lauterpacht, the latter then on the teaching staff of the School. There was also an Advisory Committee of Sir Cecil J. B. Hurst, a former President of the Permanent Court of International Justice and later Legal Adviser to the Foreign Office; W. E. Beckett, also of the Foreign Office; A. Hammarksjöld, the Registrar of the Permanent Court of International Justice, and Sir John Fischer Williams of Oxford and the Reparation Commission.

This article explores the consequences of the expansion of the domain of individual responsibility for the law of state responsibility. It is induced by a number of recent cases in which state responsibility claims were accompanied by prosecutions of individuals whose acts led to the responsibility of the state. An example is the parallel attribution of (alleged) acts of genocide in the former Yugoslavia between 1991 and 1995 to Yugoslavia and to Slobodan Milosević.

‘Climate finance’ is becoming an important feature of the emerging legal and policy regimes to address global warming. However, the current approach largely confines the financial sector to a transactional agent to mobilise capital for clean energy and to broker emission allowance trading. The sector's potential to leverage more sweeping positive changes in the economy as sought historically through the movement for socially responsible investment (SRI) has been insufficiently acknowledged. Indirectly, by regulating greenhouse gases the legal system is helping to create a business case for investors to respond to climate change threats. However, the potential contribution of SRI to address climate change problems more comprehensively is presently limited owing to inadequate governance frameworks, as well the sector's increasing abandonment of its traditional ethical agenda.

There is a widespread belief in this country that while England and the other common law countries have an adversarial system of civil procedure, continental countries use the inquisitorial system. The fact is, however, that the only kind of situation in which a truly inquisitorial procedure can be envisaged is exemplified when a policeman who, arriving at the scene of a fracas, opens the proceedings with the time honoured formula, ‘What's going on here?’ Short of that, there is nothing to which an inquisitorial judge can direct his inquiry unless and until a complaint of some kind is addressed to him. Even writers on French administrative law, whose procedure is claimed to be inquisitorial, find it difficult to avoid language that might be thought more appropriate to an adversary system. So for example, it is said that notice of the complaint must be given to all those whom the claimant indicates as his opponents.

On 11 September 2001 commercial passenger jets hijacked by suicide commandos were flown into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York. As the Towers imploded and collapsed, the death of several thousand people was witnessed live on television screens throughout the world. Those attacks, together with that on the Pentagon and the failed attempt that ended in Pennsylvania, aroused profound indignation and led to immediate reactions against the perpetrators or their protectors and sponsors, and more generally against international terrorism.

The protection of the global environment has become one of the central objectives of the international community in recent decades. Issues such as climate change, the depletion of the ozone layer, and the loss of the biological diversity has resulted in a growing international awareness of the problems facing the planet. Moreover, there is also recognition that States will need to act more collaboratively at the international level if effective solutions are to be found to these problems. However, concurrently there is also recognition that many States have pressing socio-economic concerns of their own, and that they have neither the resources nor the capabilities with which to devote to such global issues—so called “developing” States. This article examines the response of international environmental law to these two, potentially opposing, trends, viz., the need for universalism, on the one hand, and sensitivity to the needs of developing States, on the other. In particular, the article will examine the emerging legal principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities”, as well as discussing the various means of operationalising it. Nevertheless, as will be discussed below, there is still much debate as to the conceptual basis of this principle—leading one to question its real aim. Is it to contribute to a fairer world system in which developed States recognise their historical responsibility for past environmental damage, or is it simply an expedient means of ensuring the participation of developing States in what are primarily Northern concerns?

Amnesties presuppose a breach of law and provide immunity or protection from punishment. Historically amnesties were invoked in relation to breaches of the laws of war and were reciprocally implemented by opposing sides in an international armed conflict. The impact of the two world wars in the first half of the twentieth century, however, had considerable implications not only for the use of amnesties, but also for their legality under international law. The scale of the First World War precipitated a new phase of unilateral amnesty for the victors and prosecutions of war criminals for the defeated aggressor states.1 This precedent was followed after the Second World War,2 with the establishment of the first ‘international’3 criminal court, the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg. However, the horrors perpetrated during the Second World War also prompted the development of a branch of international law aimed at recognising and protecting human rights in an attempt to prevent such atrocities being repeated.

This article examines the impact of international law on the ability of States to mitigate the effects of financial crises. It focuses on the invocation of investment treaty disciplines in the aftermath of the 2001–2002 Argentine financial crisis, and the adjudication of Argentina's defence of a state of necessity under both subject treaties and at customary international law. The article uncovers three interpretative methods in the jurisprudence on the relationship between the treaty exception and customary plea of necessity: methodologies I (confluence), II (lex specialis) and III (primary-secondary applications). Method I is the dominant approach in the jurisprudence and the most restrictive of the three readings. The article argues that method I is mistaken both on a careful interpretation of the two legal standards and on a broader historical analysis of the emergence of investment treaty norms. Given these substantive flaws, the article isolates the motivations to account for the popularity of this method through a close reading of the awards. These reveal continuing tensions in the field, not least the problematic suggestion that a single value of protection should exclusively inform our understanding of the purpose of investment treaties. These sociological features of investor–State arbitration should, it is suggested, inform our choice on other interpretative methods. This comes down to an election between methods II (lex specialis) and III (primary–secondary applications). Method III is the most convincing and coherent reading of the relationship between the two legal standards. The article concludes by offering a framework to address the key interpretative questions implicated in that method: (a) the identification and scope of the notion of ‘public order’ and a State's ‘essential security interests’; and (b) the appropriate test of ‘necessity’ or means–end scrutiny.

The end of the Cold War and the emergence of a one-superpower world have brought about what one may call the resurrection of the Security Council and a reactivation of Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations. Powers of a coercive nature vested by the Charter in the Security Council which for decades seemed like a dead letter have been rediscovered since the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. The Security Council, which until then had been deadlocked through the threat or use of the veto, has now come alive. Up to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in August 1990 the Security Council had passed 659 resolutions in its 45 years of existence. In the six years since then it has passed over 400 resolutions. What is more important, however, is that mandatory sanctions, which until 1990 had been ordered only twice—the comprehensive sanctions on Rhodesia and arms embargo on South Africa—have since been used by the Security Council in relation to at least eleven countries. This new and increased activity of the Security Council has provoked debate in recent years as to whether the Council is subject to any limitations when it is acting to maintain or restore international peace and security. The problem has shifted from one of trying to get the Council to work as it was intended, to one of trying to control the work of the Council. In particular there has been renewed interest in the question whether there is any room for judicial control, by the International Court of Justice, of decisions made by the political organs of the United Nations.

This article examines the evolution of the EU anti-money laundering legislative framework (which in recent years has also included measures to counter terrorist finance), by focusing in particular on recent legislation such as the third money laundering Directive and the Regulation on controls of cash entering the EU, both adopted in 2005. The analysis highlights the relationship between these instruments and international initiatives in the field (in particular FATF standards), and addresses the challenges posed to the European Union legislative and constitutional framework when attempting to accommodate global standards.

We have now had three years' experience with the dispute-settlement process of the World Trade Organization (WTO), which came into existence as a result of the Uruguay Round of trade negotiations on 1 January 1995. By any objective standard, this system of dispute settlement is a resounding success. Well over 100 cases have been brought to the WTO, and, as at the end of 1997, 25 cases had been settled at the consultation stage, 61 were under consultations and 36 were in or beyond the panel-appeal process. The newly created Appellate Body has decided nine cases, the quality of its opinions as well as those of the dispute-settlement panels is generally excellent. Member States of the WTO are complying with the rulings and recommendations adopted by the Dispute Settlement Body of the WTO.

The entry into force of the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (“UNCLOS”), on 16 November 1994, is probably the most important development in the settlement of international disputes since the adoption of the UN Charter and the Statute of the International Court of Justice. Not only does the Convention create a new international court, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (“ITLOS”), it also makes extensive provision for compulsory dispute-settlement procedures involving States, the International Seabed Authority (“ISBA”), seabed mining contractors and, potentially, a range of other entities. Implementation of the Convention has spawned a number of inter-State disputes to add to the cases already before the International Court. The initiation of the ITLOS not only opens up new possibilities for settling these disputes but it also has implications for the future role of the International Court and ad hoc arbitration in the law of the sea and more generally. It contributes to the proliferation of international tribunals and adds to the potential for fragmentation both of the substantive law and of the procedures available for settling disputes. Judges Oda and Guillaume have argued that the ITLOS is a futile institution, that the UNCLOS negotiators were misguided in depriving the International Court of its central role in ocean disputes and that creation of a specialised tribunal may destroy the unity of international law. The law of the sea, both judges argue, is an essential part of international law and any dispute concerning the application and interpretation of that law should be seen as subject to settlement by the International Court.