The provision of legislative or other legal protection for linguistic minorities is widespread in domestic legal systems.1 In international law, and in international human rights law in particular, the question of minority language rights has until recently received much less attention. The entry into force on 1 March 1998 of the Council of Europe's European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages (the “Minority Languages Charter”), the first international instrument directed solely at the question of language, suggests that the situation may be changing.

Since the adoption of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights the relationship between human rights due diligence (HRDD) and corporate liability has been a source of legal uncertainty. In order to clarify this relationship, this article compares and contrasts civil liability provisions aiming at implementing HRDD. It explains the legal liability mechanisms in the draft Treaty on Business and Human Rights and in domestic mandatory HRDD legislation and initiatives such as the French Duty of Vigilance Law and the Swiss Responsible Business Initiative. It compares these developments with the emerging case law on parent company and supply chain liability for human rights abuses. It explores the potentially perverse effects that certain civil liability provisions and court decisions might have on companies’ practices. Finally, it makes recommendations for the design of effective liability mechanisms to implement HRDD.

The huge rise in the settlement of investment disputes by treaty has provoked an underlying question of great practical and theoretical importance: the relationship between the substantive standards protected in such treaties and general international law. This paper argues that the relationship is symbiotic: custom informing the content of the treay right; and State practice under investment treaties contributing to the development of general international law. It is the structured process of treaty interpretation which determines when and how reference to general international law may be made. Practice in this field supports a broader modern phenomenon, in which ‘general principles of law common to civilized nations’ may be informed not only by common principles of domestic law, but also by general principles of international law itself.

Even if an external observer who takes an interest in the case-law of the Court of Justice of the European Communities and of the Court of First Instance of the European Communities may not have such an impression at first sight, comparative law plays a central role in the activities of these courts. It means much more than simply looking at solutions given to certain problems in the legal orders of the Member States. As a former president of the Court of Justice rightly observed, recourse to comparative law is for the Court of Justice essentially a method of interpretation of Community law itself.1 For the Court of Justice and the CFI (below often referred to as ‘Community judge’ or ‘Community courts’), it is one method amongst other methods of interpretation of the law (such as literal, exegetic, historical, systematic interpretation) and it constitutes a tool for establishing the law.2

That humanitarian rules were applicable in armed conflicts was accepted long before the nineteenth century, but the fact that non-international armed conflicts were regarded as beyond the ambit of international regulation meant that the application of such norms to internal armed conflicts was certainly not a matter of course. Towards the end of the eighteenth century there had been a move towards the application of the laws of warfare to non-international armed conflicts as well as international conflicts, but this was based on the character of the conflicts and the fact that both were often of a similar magnitude, rather than any humanitarian concern to treat the victims of both equally. Not until the nineteenth century did the application of the laws of war to non-international armed conflicts become a widespread issue in international law.

The United States response to the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 was encouraging for those who worry about a tendency towards unilateralism on the part of the single super-power. The US deliberately engaged a number of international organisations and built an extensive coalition of supporting States before engaging in military action.

Trafficking of human beings is a widespread practice in the modern world. It has been estimated that up to 800,000 people, especially women and children, are trafficked all around the world each year.1 Virtually all States are affected,2 and traffickers are believed to make between $7 and $10 billion annually from the trafficking business.3 In order to combat trafficking, the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children (Trafficking Protocol) was adopted in December 2000, within the framework of the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (Organized Crime Convention).4

The International Court of Justice's decision in DRC v Uganda touches on, but fails to address, the circumstances under which a State has a right to use force in self-defence against non-State actors.1 In particular, the Court holds that, because the attacks carried out by anti-Ugandan rebels operating from the Democratic Republic of Congo's (DRC) territory are not attributable to the DRC, Uganda has no right to use force in self-defence against the DRC.2 The separate opinions in DRC v Uganda lament the Court's failure to take the opportunity to address the right to act in self-defence against non-State actors3–an issue of such obvious importance to the international community in an age of terrorism. As will be examined below, there are arguably good reasons–on the facts of the case–for the Court's refusal to pronounce itself on the matter. Furthermore, its decision need not be read as absolutely precluding a use of force in foreign territory in response to armed attacks by non-State actors.

When bitcoin was released by the mysterious Satoshi Nakamoto in 2008, few could have predicted that it would attract as much attention as it has today. It has spawned a veritable host of other cryptocurrencies, including ether on the upstart Ethereum network, which boasts smart contract functionality. The underlying blockchain technology has also attracted attention, with some within the blockchain community suggesting that it can solve such diverse problems as secured digital voting to tracking food provenance. In the legal context, blockchains have been envisaged as capable of revolutionising registries for assets ranging from land to intellectual property, modernising clearing and settlement, and even fundamentally transforming the contracting process. This article critically evaluates the popular claims surrounding the potential of blockchain technologies to disrupt the legal system by separating hype from fact.

The margin of appreciation doctrine has become a fundamental part of the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights. It has played a central role in most of the cases decided by that Court, including many of its most significant and controversial, and until recently has been the subject of remarkably little analysis. However, there has been a spate of interest in the doctrine in the last year or so.1 Most of this debate has concerned the details of how the margin of appreciation operates in the context of particular articles of the European Convention on Human Rights. This article's purpose is to look at the wider picture. After an outline of the essential characteristics of the doctrine, I will examine the nature of the margin and its role in adjudication. I will suggest that there are logical flaws in the margin as currently conceived, and that these undermine the quality and coherence of the Court's judgments.

This article examines the European Court of Human Rights's encounter with general international law in its Behrami and Saramati admissibility decision, where it held that the actions of the armed forces of States acting pursuant to UN Security Council authorizations are attributable not to the States themselves, but to the United Nations. The article will try to demonstrate that the Court's analysis is entirely at odds with the established rules of responsibility in international law, and is equally dubious as a matter of policy. Indeed, the article will show that the Court's decision can be only be explained by its reluctance to decide on questions of State jurisdiction and norm conflict, the latter issue becoming the clearest when Behrami is compared to the Al-Jedda judgment of the House of Lords.

The Cancun Agreements, hailed by Patricia Espinosa, Mexican Secretary of Foreign Affairs and President of the Cancun Conference, as launching ‘a new era of international cooperation on climate change,’1 were concluded on 11 December 2010 to widespread acclaim. These agreements that will guide the climate negotiations for the foreseeable future represent another twist in the tale of the ongoing negotiations.