The Conference which met at Lancaster House, London, from March 31 to April 6, 1966, from October 17 to 28, 1966, and from March 6 to 17, 1967, and which resulted in the establishment of a new “Convention on Conduct of Fishing Operations in the North Atlantic” was made necessary by the denunciation by the British Government in 1963 of the Hague “International Convention for regulating the Police of the North Sea Fisheries” which, since 1882, had governed the conduct of fishing operations and their policing between the coastal states of the North Sea. Formally the convening of this Conference was based on a resolution, adopted by the 1963/64 European Fisheries Conference on January 17, 1964, asking the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland:

“To invite the Governments of all countries participating in the North-East Atlantic fisheries to send representatives to a technical conference to be held as soon as possible to prepare for the consideration of the governments concerned a draft Convention, on the general lines of the 1882 Convention for regulating the police of the North Sea Fisheries, embodying a modern code for the conduct of fishing operations and of related activities in the North-East Atlantic;

And to invite the Governments of the United States of America and Canada to send representatives to the Conference so that the extension of the provisions of any such Convention to the North-West Atlantic Fisheries may be considered.”

The humble contribution of this writer to the Festschrift in honour of Professor A.J.P. Tammes relates to a study of the status and norms of the principle of self-determination in contemporary international law. There has been a prolonged controversy on the issue: some consider that the principle now enjoys the status of a legal right with corresponding obligations while others attribute only a moral status to the principle without any binding legal effect. By way of illustration of the nature of the controversy one can refer to the views of Rosalyn Higgins on the one hand and of Leo Gross, L.C. Green and Rupert Emerson on the other. According to Rosalyn Higgins, the main question is not whether the General Assembly resolutions have any binding effect but whether the practice of States (which she finds unanimous and consistent) revealed by the cumulative effect of such resolutions indicates the emergence of new norms or rules of customary international law. Dr. Higgins considers that the conclusion is inescapable that self-determination has developed into an international legal right. To Professor Leo Gross, the practice of decolonization (which he finds neither constant nor uniform) is a matter of political expediency, not based on a sense of legal obligation. Hence, subsequent practice as an element of interpretation does not support the theory that the principle of self-determination has acquired the status of a legal right or that human rights provisions could be interpreted as rights with corresponding obligations either generally or specifically with respect to the right to self-determination. Rupert Emerson considers it a relevant factor that the colonial Powers and a number of States supporting them have not accepted the basic principle that colonization is illegitimate nor the corollary proposition that the colonial peoples are entitled to as speedy as possible an exercise of their right to self-determination. After pointing out that there is still no right of self-determination in positive international law, Professor Green has conceded that since 1966 (when by Resolution 2200 (xxi) of 16 December 1966 both the Covenants on Human Rights were adopted by the General Assembly), such a right may be one in nascendi and may mature into a legal right in future as and when such non-binding instruments come into force; such a right can never operate retroactively, particularly because no attempt has been made to clarify what is meant by the “peoples” who are supposed to enjoy the right.

This paper focuses upon a comparatively overlooked issue with regard to the scope of self-defence in international law: whether the subjective ‘psychological’ positions of the states concerned in a dispute involving the use force have any impact upon the lawfulness of an action avowedly taken in self-defence. There exists a long standing conception that the motives of a state responding in self-defence are relevant to the lawfulness of that response. The purity (or impurity) of a state's motive forms the basis of a distinction for many writers between a lawful self-defence action and an unlawful armed reprisal. Similarly, in recent decisions of the ICJ, the implication has been that the subjective intention of the attacking state may be relevant to the question of whether the attack perpetrated by that state can trigger the right of self-defence. The conclusion is reached here that the lawfulness of an avowed self-defence action should be premised upon objective criteria alone. Moreover, this reflects the law as it is in fact applied in practice. It is argued that the subjective ‘psychological’ position of either the responding or attacking state has no place in the final analysis of whether an action in self-defence was lawful or unlawful.

In January 2000, a tailings pond operated at Baia Mare in Romania collapsed, spilling 120 tonnes of cyanide and heavy metals into the Lapus River. The pollution flowed into the Somes and Tisa, two Hungarian rivers, and into the Danube and then into the Black Sea. The pond was operated by AURUL, a joint-venture between Esmeralda Exploration of Australia and REMIN, a Romanian state-owned mining company. It had the dual responsibilities of extracting gold, silver and other minerals from an abandoned tailings pond, and also transferring the tailings from their existing site, which was close to a residential area, to a remote site. The tailings pond had collapsed only after seven months of operation. This accident, which has been described as ‘Europe’s worst environmental disaster since Chernobyl' caused extensive environmental damage in its wake. In particular, it was alleged that the pollution caused the death of over one million kilograms of fish in Hungary and seriously disrupted the livelihoods of people. It was feared that some endangered fish species might have been wiped out permanently. The accident also resulted in the destruction of a large number of plant and wildlife species in the river systems. In July of the same year, Hungary sought compensation of US$ 110 million from the Australian company which was responsible for operating the mine. Hungary also announced that it was considering taking legal action against Romania.

The recent Tenerife aircrash of March 1977 involves a variety of multistate issues. The Dutch lawyer, if unable to obtain a satisfactory settlement for his client, may contemplate undertaking action in the U.S.A. He will then be confronted with such questions as against whom he can bring proceedings, under the jurisdiction of which court, what the procedure will be, and which state or national law will apply. He will also be required to know who may bring an action, who may ultimately benefit from it and what items may be included to determine the amount of damages.

The present article is intended to give a résumé of the international law questions arising in connection with Article 25 of the Constitution of the German Federal Republic of 23 May 1949, which reads as follows: “The general rules of public international law are an integral part of federal law. They shall take precedence over the laws and shall directly create rights and duties for the inhabitants of the federal territory”. First of all it must be recalled that the Weimar Constitution of 11 August 1919 included a similar provision. Article 4 provided: “The generally recognised rules of international law constitute a binding integral part of the legal system of the German Empire.”

Article 3 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms states that:

“No-one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment”.

On 21 May, Professor Dr. Jan Hendrik Willem Verzijl died peacefully at his home in the ninety-ninth year of his life. In his person, one of the last witnesses of a tremendously important period in international law has passed away — a period commencing, as far as he was concerned, with the Second Hague Conference of 1907.

The conquest of outer space has provided countless benefits and offers limitless potential for mankind. Despite the important developments which have been made in various fields connected with the exploitation of outer space, the predominant application of space science and technology is the communications satellite which is used for the transmittal of audio (radio), telegraph, telephone, and visual (television) transmissions either to a limited (local) or vast (national, regional, international), area. The most controversial of these functions is television broadcasting, as it is generally accepted that individuals are more influenced by what they see than by what they hear.