Intervention is an almost daily phenomenon of international politics. Both for practitioners of international law and for students of international relations it is a challenging theoretical problem, since the occurrence of intervention is contrary to a number of hypotheses assumed in the theoretical analysis of international problems. In its broadest sense the concept of intervention refers to any act that invades the theoretical sphere of action of States which — in so far as a spatial conception of things can have any relevance in this context — is confined to relations between States and in no way affects the intra-state territory of other States. The traditional model or paradigm which practitioners of both sciences have long adopted as the starting point of their analysis is derived from an image of international politics as relations between States, whereby each individual State has exclusive competence for the political process within its frontiers. Intervention means externally initiated acts which imply an infringement of that exclusive competence and which are therefore inadmissible from a normative and legal point of view. So interpreted, however, the intervention concept covers a whole range of activities which form a substantial part of the day-to-day practice of international politics and, consequently, also constitute an intellectual challenge for theoreticians. If non-intervention was the norm, interventions would be presumed to be the exception:

“The weight of opinion was that they constituted exceptions to the principle of non-intervention, that they did not preponderate to the extent of converting that principle from the rule to the exception”.

The Asser Institute has asked me to speak in English, here in The Hague before a Dutch audience. Permit me to linger for a moment over this phenomenon.

In attempting to formulate the principles of law regulating transfrontier pollution, it is helpful to recall the experience of states in dealing with this kind of pollution. I propose, therefore, to say something about the Canadian and United States experience in this matter, concentrating on three problems relating to water resources, namely pollution of the Great Lakes, pollution of waters caused by acid rain, and the damage threatened in Canadian waters by the Garrison Diversion project in the United States.

Federalism is a form of governmental organisation whose origins may be traced to antiquity. However, the establishment of the United States as a federation during the late 18th century led to renewed interest in federal government, which has continued undiminished to the present day. As a measure of the significance of federalism, in 1987 it was estimated that some 40 per cent of the world's population lived in States that are formally federal, and that another one-third lived in polities that apply federal arrangements in some way. Amongst these States are Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Germany, India,Mexico, the Russian Federation, Switzerland and the United States of America.

Professor Rolin discusses the content of the Indonesian Nationalization Act and the Decrees for its implementation, and notes, inter alia, the following:

that the taking is confined to Netherlands enterprises, the implementing Decrees leaving open the possibility that it will not be restricted to property within Indonesia;

that the contemplated compensation does not represent the value of the enterprises, because it will evidently consist of only a part of the revenue from them, and that the payment of this compensation is deferred until some future date as yet unspecified.

It is also clearly indicated that the motive for the taking is “the struggle for the liberation of Western New Guinea”. According to official statements, the payment of compensation will also depend on there being a settlement satisfactory to Indonesia of the dispute over Western New Guinea. The taking is therefore an unfriendly, or even hostile act in reply to the attitude adopted by the Netherlands with regard to Western New Guinea.

The purpose of this lecture is to identify and investigate two things: (1) the centre of the intellectual activity described in its title as the defining and development of international law, and (2) the fundamental concept around which both defining and development revolve. The centre as indicated will be found to consist of (representatives of) what is to be called the three “legal archetypes”. The fundamental concept alluded to is the “normative concept of law”. The two notions are, of course, highly abstract as compared to the realities they are designed to help understand. They will be set forth as clearly as possible within the strict limits of this lecture, although it is realized that a truly satisfactory treatment cannot be imagined outside a full-size methodology. An apology beforehand is, therefore, in place. One particular question relating to the normative concept of law in international relations will be dealt with in some detail: it has to do with “tragedy in law” as resulting from the clash between competing normative concepts. As a final observation, the need for a maximum degree of flexibility in the international lawyer's way of thought will be stressed.

Since 1 March 2002 the EC Regulation No. 44/2001 on Jurisdiction and the Recognition and Enforcement of Judgments in Civil and Commercial Matters (hereinafter referred to as the ‘Brussels I’ Regulation) operates in legal practice. On 1 May 2004 the new EU Member States had to accept the ‘Brussels I’ Regulation as acquis communautaire. The Regulation is now in force in all EU Member States, with the exception of Denmark. As mentioned in the previous survey, it is the intention to conclude eventually a convention with Denmark in which the solutions reached under the ‘Brussels I’ Regulation will be laid down. Then the necessary unity in the application of the rules of jurisdiction and of recognition and enforcement will be restored again. According to Article 68 EC the EC Court of Justice can give preliminary rulings on the interpretation of the ‘Brussels I’ Regulation. Although the first questions are put before the ECJ, there is no decision as yet in which the ‘Brussels I’ Regulation has been interpreted. In one decision regarding the interpretation of Article 5(3) Brussels Convention concerning the forum delicti, the ECJ referred to the solutions reached under the same provision in the ‘Brussels I’ Regulation. The Court decided that Article 5(3) Brussels Convention could also be used in case the harmful event might occur.

The International Court of Justice, in its two successive guises, has on several occasions already had to deal with cases in which its own jurisdiction in the dispute brought before it was at issue. In nearly every instance when its jurisdiction to take cognizance of the merits of a case was challenged, the proceedings were divided, according to a provision in the Court's Rules of Procedure now embodied in Article 62, into a preliminary and a final phase, although such a division is not obligatory in the sense that the defendant party retains its freedom to raise its objections to the Court's jurisdiction not as a preliminary but simultaneously with its defence on the merits.

The Convention relating to the arrest of seagoing ships entered into force for the Netherlands on 20 July 1983. Its purpose is, first of all, to limit the possibility of arrest to maritime claims, as summed up in Article 1 (inter alia, claims arising from: collisions, salvage, carriage, wages, mortgage). In addition, Article 7 grants jurisdiction on the merits to the courts of the country where the arrest was made, if the domestic law of that country so provides, or in any of six situations enumerated in that Article.

In the following pages I intend to survey the judgments of the International Court of Justice pronounced in the course of 1959.

Owing to the differing degrees of importance from the legal point of view of the individual cases dealt with, their discussion will necessarily vary in length and thoroughness.

The purpose of this paper is the comparative study of the jurisdictional functions performed by attachment and garnishment under Belgian and American law. In other words, an attempt will be made to ascertain how and to what extent Belgian and American courts may adjudicate upon claims involving foreigners whose assets are found within their respective jurisdictions.

The current transformation process of the American conflict of laws system from a traditional “hard-and-fast” body of jurisdiction-selecting rules to a modern method of functional analysis has raised a widespread wave of interested, diverse and, more often than not, critical reactions. Criticism to the new approach is particularly strong outside the United States and especially in the civil law countries where a certain number of established scholars tend to reject the functional methods as a rudely disguised way of always applying the forum law. Be that as it may –and a closer first hand examination of its doctrinal and jurisprudential sources may discover that the functional analysis is indeed an intelligent and sophisticated method of dealing with choice of laws problems—the fact is that American courts are increasingly applying the language and the substance of the new approach to solve both interstate and international conflicts. The following selective examination of some of these latter cases permits us to illustrate how the functional analysis actually works in practice and to evaluate to what extent this new approach might also be operative as a method of solving international conflict of laws.