In 1970, the number of refugees in Africa was estimated at three-quarters of a million; by 1980 it was estimated at five million and is still growing. One in every two of the ten million refugees in the world in 1980 was from Africa and the total number of African refugees now exceeds the population of many African countries. A discussion of the many inter-connected causes of the refugee problem in Africa, the magnitude of which continues to grow, would be beyond the scope of this analysis. However, at the 1981 International Conference on Assistance to Refugees in Africa (ICARA) it was agreed that the African refugee problem required consideration not merely in connection with the need to extend assistance to refugees, but also the need to pay attention to the forces in all their forms, that conspire to generate refugee influxes. In this regard the Conference agreed that besides natural calamities, all refugee situations in Africa are inextricably linked with cases of violations of human and peoples’ rights. Apart from these manifestly political issues, there are of course the humanitarian, social and economic aspects of the problems of refugees which must be dealt with by African States. These non-political aspects alone have created a formidable task for African governments, inter-governmental and non-governmental agencies as well as for the Organization of African Unity (OAU).

The magnitude and seriousness of the environmental consequences of the 1990–1991 Iraq-Kuwait War, have raised a variety of legal questions concerning the validity, effectiveness and interpretation of applicable principles and rules of international law.

The central issue that dominates the study of the international law of human rights is that of enforcement. The presumption is that even though States draft and ratify treaties binding themselves, as a matter of international law, to the protection and promotion of human rights, there are no real reciprocal benefits to be derived from compliance such that it is unrealistic to expect States to carry out those obligations in good faith. Hence, the study of the international law of human rights has tended to focus primarily upon the work of the various human rights treaty bodies which undertake supervisory roles over the implementation of the treaty obligations.

Maritime embargo operations implement economic sanctions adopted by the UNSC by means of naval forces at sea. In order to implement such sanctions in line with international law, it is essential for states that the legal basis in maritime embargo operations is clear. Since the UNSC has authorized states to use force in the enforcement of economic measures at sea, the precise legal basis of a certain category of maritime embargo operations has, however, been the subject of debate. Commentators have argued in a variety of ways to either categorize these military operations under Article 41, or Article 42 of the UN Charter, or even somewhere in between. This article first categorizes the different types of maritime embargo operations to underline that such maritime embargo operations can have different legal bases. Secondly, it considers under which circumstances maritime embargo operations can fall within the context of Article 41 or 42. It is argued that against the background of the evolved scope of Article 42 there may now be less reluctance to position explicit maritime embargo operations that also authorize the use of force within Article 42 of the UN Charter.

The secession of Belgium from the Netherlands in 1830 was both the signal of departure for the divergent development of law in the two countries, and a breakingpoint in the recently completed codification of private law. (The codes concerned, which had already been enacted, were to have entered into force on 1 February 1831). For the applicable law in the Netherlands, this meant, inter alia, that the French Code de Commerce would continue to be in force for another eight years. In the meantime an effort was made to adapt the Dutch national code to the now arisen situation in so far as regarding various points would be deviated to an even greater extent from the French example than had been done in previous bills. Before Holland was annexed by France, King Louis Napoleon had instructed a trimvirate to draw up a Dutch Commercial Code, and in accordance with his instructions, they had used the Code de Commerce as a starting point, though where necessary, they certainly took into account the conditions existing and the opinions prevailing in the Netherlands. The 1809 bill that resulted continued to play an important part in the later preparations of the codification. The result was that the Dutch Commercial Code which entered into force in 1838 was based to a lesser extent on the French example than was the case with the other codes – though it still followed the French example to a considerable degree – because on certain points it restored the Dutch law dating from before the French occupation, particularly with regard to a number of subjects concerning maritime law and insurance law, as well as bankruptcy law. With regard to the law on negotiable instruments, it was evidently considered less important, probably because traces of the original Dutch law were still discernable in the relevant provisions of the Code de Commerce. This resulted from the fact that in the preparation of the Ordonnance du Commerce of 1673 Colbert had invited Amsterdam merchants to Paris to advise him regarding the content of the law on negotiable instruments.

The Mekong river, with a length of 4,200 km, is the main watercourse in South-East Asia, flowing from the north-eastern rim of the Tibetan plateau at an altitude of 5,000 m into the South China Sea near Ho-Chi-Minh Ville. Its drainage basin of nearly 800,000 km is larger in area than France and includes Kampuchea, most of Laos and parts of the other four riparian countries, i.e., the People's Republic of China, Burma, Thailand and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. In its course it constitutes parts of the boundaries between the People's Republic of China and Burma, Burma and Laos, Laos and Thailand and Laos and Kampuchea. Its flow increases considerably during the rainy season (May-October), raising the water level at Phnom-Penh by 16 m and flooding the Central Plain of that country, thereby trebling the surface of the Tonlé-Sap (Great Lake) and the Delta in Southern Vietnam. With an annual average discharge of about 475,000 million cubic metres, it is the eighth largest river in the world.

This article reviews the procedures used to determine refugee applications. Using Kenya and Egypt as case studies, it discusses the basic international due-process considerations that should be observed when adjudicating asylum claims. Issues surrounding access to territory and procedural information, the competency of decision-makers, and legal assistance and advice in making applications are evaluated. Also examined are the nature of asylum decisions and the extent to which these outcomes promote appeal rights. It is contended that adjudication procedures fall considerably short of due-process guarantees. The article concludes that, in order to meet minimum standards, a comprehensive approach is required.

One reason at least, as the writer of this study tries to show, is that the Baltic Sea has to a great extent formed a “microcosms” reflecting the changing priniciples of the law of the sea. Thus the classic terms of the law of the sea such as “mare liberum”, “freedom of fishing”, “conservation”, “growing interests of the coastal states”, “exclusive fisheries zones” are all relevant to the Baltic Sea. The legal aspects of the Baltic Sea fisheries pose questions, also, which concern the general theory of international law, such as the law of treaties (both bilateral and multilateral agreements), the relationship between international law and muncipal law (the resolutions of international organization and muncipal law) and the law relating to international organizations (in particular the role of resolutions of international organizations in the law making process).

States create the rules of international law for the express purpose of serving and advancing their respective national interests. States do not adopt useless, impractical or dangerous rules to regulate their relations in the first place. The requirements of international law are substantially, albeit imperfectly, congruent with the dictates of vital national interests and vice versa. Any system of law, even an imperfect one, usually proves to be more beneficial and therefore preferable to each participant than the existence of no legal rules at all. Therefore, in times of international crisis adherence to the rules of international law oftentimes proves to be in a state's best interest anyway. The reason why two cars approaching each other on a narrow mountain road obey the rules of the road by each driving on the right-hand side supplies an excellent analogy to why states will follow international law in time of crisis.

“The ordinary jus gentium is only a particular law, applicable to a distinct set or family of nations, varying at different times with the change in religion, manners, government, and other institutions, among every class of nations. Hence the international law of the civilized, Christian nations of Europe and America, is one thing; and that which governs the intercourse of the Mohammedan nations of the East with each other, and with Christians, is another and a very different thing. The international law of Christendom began to be fixed about the time of Grotius, when the combined influence of religion, chivalry, the feudal system, and commercial and literary intercourse, had blended together the nations of Europe into one great family. This law does not merely consist of the principles of natural justice applied to the conduct of states considered as moral beings. It may, indeed, have a remote foundation of this sort; but the immediate visible basis on which the public law of Europe, and of the American nations which have sprung from the European stock, has been erected, are the customs, usages, and conventions observed by that portion of the human race in their mutual intercourse”.

A state's rules of criminal jurisdiction determine the (spatial) scope of its criminal law. Such rules become increasingly important as criminal offences gain an international dimension. Every state has its own rules of criminal jurisdiction. As they form the outcome of considerations involving both legal and political aspects, it is hardly surprising that there are substantial differences between states. Irrespective of their differences, however, these rules are commonly classified according to the so-called ‘principles of jurisdiction’. This classification is based on the connection between the particular offence in question and the state claiming jurisdiction regarding this offence. With regard to the territoriality principle this connecting point forms the locus delicti: the jurisdictional requirement is that the offence is committed within the territory of the state (hereafter: intraterritorial locus delicti) claiming jurisdiction. The other principles are principles of extraterritorial jurisdiction because they apply when the offence is supposed to have been committed outside the country's territory (extraterritorial). The active personality principle is based on the nationality of the offender; a state claims jurisdiction over crimes committed by its own nationals. According to the passive personality principle, the nationality of the victim of the offence provides the basis for the establishment of jurisdiction. The protective principle applies if the extraterritorial offence injures or endangers a certain legal interest to which the state ascribes a particular national importance. With the universality principle there is also a particular legal interest involved, yet, different from the one applying with the protection principle, the interest here is of a universal nature. The differences between jurisdictional systems of states are found in the different elaborations of these principles. The active personality principle, for example, might be applied to all offences, but also to a limited group of offences. Sometimes, the applicability of this principle is subjected to the requirement that the offence in question is punishable according to the law of the state in which the offence is committed (lex loci delicti). In addition, the territoriality principle, which today is considered a jurisdictional starting-point for any state, is interpreted in different ways as each state interprets the locus delicti concept related to this principle in its own way.

It is widely accepted that the provision of access to safe drinking water and sanitation services for the world's poor is one of the great developmental challenges of the modern era. There is a need to establish mechanisms that enable the human right to water to be satisfied in developing states. This article will discuss how the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) can be used to facilitate the promotion of quality and affordable water services to developing states. Indeed, it is argued that the WTO and the GATS are the most appropriate mechanisms to successfully satisfy the human right to water in developing countries. The challenges of adopting a multilateral model will be explored, and the importance of adopting capacity-building issues and pricing challenges within an amended GATS framework will be addressed. The nexus between the GATS and the trend towards privatisation will also be considered. The aim of this article is to contribute towards a greater understanding of the role that international trade law in general, and the GATS in particular, can play as part of a holistic response to the immense problems (present and future) relating to water resources in LDCs.

African law has come of age. It has its own Journal, its own international association, and increasing attention is being turned to various aspects of the field in all quarters of the globe. A quarter of a century ago the view was expressed that Netherlands Indies jurisprudence and the studies of Dutch-trained jurists on the Indies law would be of extreme value when the interpretation of a comparable plurality of legal systems in tropical Africa was undertaken. The suggestion has been realized. In Holland former students of adat law have turned to African native law and custom. In England the experts on African law frequently rely on such Dutch works as are made available to them. I welcome the opportunity of expressing my esteem, as well as my indebtedness, to the scholar who has provided the solid foundation for a very important segment of African, as it was of Indies, law. To Professor Kollewijn I dedicate this fragment on conflict of laws in East Africa.

The concept of sovereignty is not on friendly terms with the concept of tolerance. Sovereignty is an exclusive concept, it is derived from the term ‘supreme power’ and it stands for absolute and comprehensive jurisdiction over the people who find themselves on the territory of the sovereign State. Sovereignty is indeed a State-oriented concept. State sovereignty is the hall-mark of the Westphalian system, a world-order composed of clearly defined, mutually impregnable territorial units. Tolerance is a concept which is man-oriented, it is inclusive, it denotes a state of mind, a mentality, it does not separate, it unites people in spite of their differences.

More than fifty years ago, some fifty States met in San Francisco to draw up the blueprint for the management of the future relations between States. Acting under the influence of the long and bloody conflict that was just coming to an end – a conflict which had left no doubt about the enormous capacity of States for oppressing, torturing and killing large numbers of individuals – the States present at San Francisco radically departed from the past by granting to the new institution certain powers and duties relating to human rights. Prior to the Second World War, there had been virtually no international standards that States were required to respect or observe in dealing with their own people, a void that was made painfully obvious by the Holocaust and other acts of mass brutality and death. Because the term ‘human rights’ basically describes and relates to the relationship between a State or its government and its own people, a relationship that is second to none in being ‘domestic’, the States at San Francisco were ploughing the deepest of all possible inroads into the affairs of sovereign States.

During the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the Netherlands was a confederation of states, consisting of seven sovereign provinces which had united in 1579 in the Union of Utrecht, mainly for the purposes of defence. This form of co-operation, which turned out to be increasingly unsatisfactory in practice, continued until 1795, when a unitary state, the Batavian Republic, was created under the influence of the French Revolution. Restless years followed. The influence of France steadily increased; in 1806 this resulted in the establishment of the Kingdom of Holland, ruled by one of Napoleon's brothers. In 1810 the Netherlands' independence came to an end in a formal sense when it was incorporated in the French Empire. This situation continued until 1813; in November of that year the power was taken over by a number of prominent figures in the expectation of the arrival from England of a descendant of the House of Orange. This House had assumed the most important position in the Union, the position of Stadhouder during the period of the federation of states. Within the limits of the constitution that was laid down, he was granted sovereignty over the unitary state to be created. Even today, the crown passes on to the successors of this first monarch.

This article analyses the Dutch practice on the prosecution of international crimes with a view to determining whether this practice has been inspired by or has informed developments at the international level and more generally to analyzing how Dutch practice interrelates with international developments. The article singles out three episodes. First, a prelude of frustration in which the extradition of the German Kaiser was refused (1918-1920). Subsequently, two periods of engagement, which were to some extent inspired by international proceedings (1946-1951 and 1994-today). In these periods, Dutch courts demonstrated their commitment to the project of international criminal justice and they have produced insightful judgments which have even served as a source of law and a source of inspiration to contemporary international criminal law adjudication. The article has been written on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the Netherlands Society of International Law.

1. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly

“as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations, to the end that every individual and every organ of society, keeping this Declaration constantly in mind, shall strive by teaching and education to promote respect for these rights and freedoms and by progressive measures, national and international, to secure their universal and effective recognition and observance, both among the Member States themselves and among the peoples of territories under their jurisdiction”.

The present article deals with the fate of the 1976 Chlorides and Chemical Pollutants Conventions concluded by the riparian states of the Rhine and in the case of the latter Convention also by the EEC. It further analyzes the decision of 8 January 1979 taken by the District Court of Rotterdam in the case of certain Dutch horticulturists and the Dutch Stichting ‘Reinwater’ against the French Mines Domaniales de Potasse d'Alsace.

The author pleads that the Dutch Government institute proceedings against France before the I.C.J. considering the fact that the French Government refused to ratify the 1976 Chlorides Convention and the fact that the proceedings at present taking place before the Dutch Courts will not lead to a diminuition of the salt-load of the Rhine.