The judgment of the European Court of Justice in Cartesio was eagerly awaited as a clarification of the questions concerning the scope of the right of establishment (articles 49, 54 Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), (ex-articles 43, 48 EC) that remained after previous landmark decisions such as Centros, Überseering, and Inspire Art. This article analyses the implications of Cartesio in light of different scenarios of transfer of the registered and the real seat within the European Union. It assesses the interrelations of right of establishment and private international law rules for the determination of the law applicable to companies and concludes that the case law of the European Court of Justice after Cartesio, rather than providing for a coherent system of European company law, leads to arbitrary distinctions and significantly impedes the free movement of companies.

Chapter V (Part 1) of the ILC&s1 Articles on State Responsibility2 contains sixcircumstances which, when invoked justify, or excuse,3 the commission of acts that are otherwise unlawful against another State.4 The circumstances attenuate or remove responsibility entirely. These circumstances are namely: consent (Article 20), selfdefence (Article 21), countermeasures (Article 22), force majeure (Article 23), distress (Article 24), and necessity (Article 25). Nonetheless, Article 26 of the ILCASR states that ‘[n]othing in this Chapter precludes the wrongfulness of a State which is not in conformity with anobligation arising under a peremptory norm of general international law.’

One might, by way of introduction, return to the general question. What is one to make of the debate between Professor Birks and the apparent schematic disorder of the common law? One immediate response is to consign this whole debate to a past age. Those who believe that meaningful legal reform can be achieved through classification risk being ridiculed.7 Such a view is understandable. The amount of intellectual energy spent on emancipating unjust enrichment from the categories of contract, tort and equity seems to bear little relation to the actual social benefits detectable in the restitution decisions themselves.8 And the experimentation with the public and private law dichotomy appears to have proved of little worth in the face of such social horrors as child abuse.9

The Maastricht Treaty aimed partly to close the democratic deficit that exists in the European decision-making process. Accordingly, the role and the powers of the European Parliament were increased: a right of initiative was created, 1 committees of inquiry were reinforced, 2 the right of petition3 was recognised, an Ombudsman was created4 and a new legislative procedure, 5 which attempted to put the Parliament on an equal footing with the Council, was also included in the Treaty.

Somalia has been without government since 1991. A transitional government was established in 2004 under the presidency of Abdullahi Yusuf, with the backing of the United Nations, the African Union (AU), the Arab League and the Inter-governmental Agency for Development (IGAD). The Government sat in Baidoa in southern Somalia from June 2005 until December 2006. In June 2006 the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) took control of much of southern and central Somalia, including the capital, Mogadishu, but not Puntland and Somaliland. They declared and tried to establish an Islamic State. Somalis were told to comply with stringent Islamic rules or face harsh punishment. In the meantime, efforts to achieve national reconciliation were ongoing under the auspices of IGAD, though without much success. It was reported that on 20 July 2006 Ethiopian troops crossed into Somalia. Ethiopia only admitted to having military trainers to help the Somali Government (estimated to be 400 military personnel). On 21 July, the UIC declared a ‘holy war’ against Ethiopia. In September 2006 the Somali interim President survived an assassination attempt in Baidoa. On 25 October 2006 Ethiopia said that it was ‘technically at war’ with the Islamic Courts. After few days the UIC claimed to have ambushed and killed Ethiopian troops near the Ethiopian border.1

The conclusion and adoption of the Statute of a permanent International Criminal Court2 (“Statute”) in Rome in July 19983 represent a turning point in the enforcement of legal norms regulating armed conflict. Th e Rom e Conference was the latest, and most important, chapter in a long saga concerning the broader issue of the conclusion and adoption of a Draft Code of Crimes against the Peace and Security of Mankind, an important part of which was the establishment of an international criminal court to try such crimes.4 The International Law Commission (ILC), the UN organ responsible for the preparation of the Code,5 decided to separate the two objectives and to proceed with the drafting of a statute for an international criminal court that was distinct from the Draft Code of Crimes: the ILC envisaged a court that would exercise jurisdiction in respect of crimes of international concern which existed as such in various treaties already in force.6 This approach is reflected in the provisions of the Statute adopted at Rom e concerning the jurisdiction of the Court, as explained below.7

This article discusses the current negotiations for an Implementing Agreement under the United Nations Convention on the Law of Sea on the conservation and sustainable use of marine biodiversity in areas beyond national jurisdiction. It discusses, in particular, the issue of the relationship of the new agreement with existing and future relevant regional instruments and bodies and the need for cooperation and coordination amongst them, the guiding principles of the new agreement, and the question of implementation and enforcement of the new agreement. These issues and the choices that delegations will make respectively highlight the controversy on the underpinning tenet of the agreement, ie between the ‘freedom of the high seas’ and the common heritage of mankind. The article concludes with a pessimistic prognosis that, in general, the agreement will fall short of the expectations that many States and international community have had at the early days of the negotiation.

On 27 June 2000, the updated Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises (the Guidelines) were adopted by the 29 Member States of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) together with the observer governments of Argentina, Brazil, Chile and the Slovak Republic. The Ministerial Conference Chairman, Mr Peter Costello, described the 2000 Review as heralding the most “far reaching changes” to the Guidelines since their introduction in 1976.1 This note proposes to consider only the most noteworthy among them.2 Accordingly, it will not examine those elements that have merely been reaffirmed by the 2000 Review. However, the conclusions will be made that the Chairman's sentiments are only observable in the ongoing textual development of the Guidelines and that the all-important implementation mechanism has only been improved by half-measure

[In 1999, the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee invited a number of international lawyers to submit papers on the legal aspects of the Kosovo crisis. Papers were submitted by Professor Ian Brownlie QC, Professor Christine Chinkin, Professor Christopher Greenwood QC, Professor Vaughan Lowe, and Mark Littman QC. The three last-named answered questions on the issue at a session of the Committee held in February 2000.