This article examines attribution of conduct and responsibility in peace support operations, which is, and will continue to be, a troubling subject of international law. It particularly examines two specific questions: what is the proper test for attribution of conduct, and whether and, if so, how dual attribution of conduct and responsibility can be established in international joint operations? As regards the former question, a brief critique of the major case law and documents recently dealing with attribution of conduct and responsibility in peace support operations shows that Behrami and Saramati poses a serious obstacle to determining the most suitable test without any confusion, thus there is a strong need to radically depart from this decision of the European Court of Human Rights. With respect to the latter, the meaning of the 'effective control' criterion, which is to be the basis for dual attribution in joint military missions, ought to be clarified. In this respect, the Mustafić and Nuhanović judgments delivered by The Hague Appeal Court and the Supreme Court of the Netherlands, to which the article pays special attention, are exemplary – to the extent that the latter did not conflate the notion of dual attribution of conduct with that of (dual or) multiple attribution of responsibility – and these judgments can be seen as a source of inspiration for the future application of the ‘effective control’ standard in practice.

A state's denunciation of a treaty with the sole objective of re-acceding to it with a reservation may be interpreted as circumventing the prohibition of the late formulation of reservations enshrined in Article 19 of the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. This article addresses five cases where the denunciation of and re-accession to a treaty was at least considered by certain states and whose analysis promises to clarify the legal characteristics of this practice. One instance involved such a practice being discussed by the Swiss Federal Tribunal in the context of the amendment of the Swiss interpretative declaration to Article 6(1) of the European Convention on Human Rights. Another instance involved Trinidad and Tobago and Guyana with regard to the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. A further situation arose when in 2002 Sweden denounced and re-acceded to the Council of Europe Convention on the Reduction of Multiple Nationality and on Military Obligations in Cases of Multiple Nationality with the aim of excluding the obligations contained in Chapter I of this treaty. The last case analyzed in this article is Bolivia's denunciation of and re-accession to the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs. The aim of this article is to offer a critical appraisal of this practice under international law. The article argues that the European states' position differs from the generality of states. In addition, states may include specific provisions on the possibility of denouncing and re-acceding with a reservation when they draft their treaties. States may review more systematically the treaty action and object to practices that are not compatible with the reserving states' good faith treaty obligations. And the ILC may include this topic into its work programme, for example, when updating the Guide to Practice on Reservations to Treaties.

The 25th anniversary of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in November 2014 is an appropriate occasion for reviewing its record of achievements and challenges in protecting children's rights worldwide. Clear accomplishments to build on are the comprehensive nature of the Convention and its capacity to accommodate the largely diverse contexts in which its provisions are to be realized. In addition, widespread and massive law reform is one of the most tangible achievements stimulated by the Convention. Finally, the existence and performance of the Committee on the Rights of the Child, charged with monitoring the implementation of the Convention, has been assessed positively. Most recently, this was rewarded with the entry into force of the third Optional Protocol to the Convention, which introduced communications procedures including individual and state complaints mechanisms. After having reviewed this record of selected achievements critically, four selected major challenges that still stand in the way of the fuller realization of the Convention will be presented more briefly. The main reason for this difference in emphasis is that, on the whole, the achievements speak more significantly to issues concerning the progressive development of international law while the challenges are, on the whole, more of a practical nature. The latter are: the persistence of poverty and other root causes of many child rights problems; difficulties in permeating into the private – including domestic and corporate – sphere where a considerable number of child rights violations occur but which are still hardly covered explicitly by international human rights law; and issues concerning the availability of data and resources.

This article addresses the question whether the European Union defaulted on the ‘strict observance’ of international law and ‘respect’ for the UN Charter, which are now express objectives of the EU following the Lisbon reform, in the course of the famous Kadi cases. With the final appeals judgment having been handed down by the Court of Justice of the European Union in July 2013, this question can now be conclusively answered in the negative. Despite the general tension these legal challenges created between EU law and international law, the EU managed, in the course of twelve years, to weave a seamless coat of compliance with international law. The article contrasts this finding with the general academic discourse on this case law, which tends to depict Kadi as a ‘sacrifice’ of compliance with international law for the benefit of fundamental rights (as well as the autonomy of the EU legal order). By retracing the entirety of this string of cases, the article demonstrates that, all rhetoric aside and for all practical purposes, the EU courts and other institutions managed to avoid any violations of international legal obligations towards the UN Security Council in this matter. The EU discontinued its own sanctions against Mr Kadi only after he had been delisted by the UN by means of a political decision, not by virtue of judicial intervention.

The prohibition of the use of force is generally considered to be a jus cogens rule, which would mean that it does not permit any derogation, neither by consent nor by treaty. Yet multiple apparent derogations from the prohibition exist: Articles 42 and 51 of the UN Charter, Articles 105, 110 and 111 of the UNCLOS, and other treaties all permit uses of force, and ad hoc consent to use force is common. This article explains how this can be legally valid, by reference to the distinctions between derogations, exceptions, and scope.

In recent years, counter-terrorism measures have notably reshaped the relationship between terrorist suspects and the state. In this context, the discourse surrounding the lack of a uniform and comprehensive definition of terrorism at the international level has reoccurred. In the course of this contribution, clear lines will be drawn between the lack of an international definition of terrorism and certain transnationally important domestic trends relevant to the definition and countering of terrorism. Each section will focus on a particular aspect of the debate surrounding the term ‘terrorism’ with the aim of contextualising the development of the definitional vacuum and its impact on state counter-terrorism particularly after 9/11. It will be argued that an internationally binding definition of terrorism might not in fact have an impact on state counter-terrorism measures and domestic definitions of terrorism. This contribution will conclude that in the context of domestic and transnational legislative developments following 9/11, even if a definition of terrorism existed in international law, in practice there is no certainty that states will comply with it both in times of normalcy and emergency.

China has long supported the establishment of a permanent international criminal court, but it cast a negative vote at the end of the Rome conference in 1998 due to certain concerns that had not been addressed to its satisfaction. The specific Chinese concerns regarding the Rome Statute to some extent echo China's traditional position with respect to international judicial bodies. This article investigates the ways in which China has characterized the International Criminal Court (ICC) as a human rights court of the traditional kind. It examines the substance of the articulated Chinese concerns regarding the ICC in light of China's engagement with international judicial bodies, and some of the traditional concerns that have had an impact on that engagement. This article argues that the ICC is distinct from the UN human rights treaty bodies, and that China's progressively wider engagement with international adjudication should not be hindered by putting the ICC in a ‘human rights box’.

This article first examines the entire range of agency relationships between an international organisation, acting as a principal, and one or more states, acting as its agent(s). It is here argued that an agency relationship between an international organisation and one or more state(s) can be established by the constitutive treaty of the organisation, or ad hoc. In particular, an ad hoc agency relationship results from a state placing one of its organs at the disposal of an international organisation and under its effective control, with the purpose of carrying out functions of that organisation.

The article then examines the consequences for the responsibility of the organisation and the relevant state(s) of an agency relationship between an international organisation acting as a principal and one or more states acting as its agent(s). It is demonstrated that an international organisation may be responsible for damage caused by the conduct of the state. Furthermore, it is argued that the state itself may bear responsibility for having established or for not having terminated the agency relationship if it commits wrongful conduct on behalf of the international organisation.

Article 16 is one of the most contested provisions of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. It authorizes the Security Council to suspend the Court's investigations and prosecutions for a renewable period of twelve months, but does not define the circumstances under which the Council should issue a deferral. In 2013, Kenya and the African Union requested the Council to postpone the trials of President Kenyatta and Vice-President Ruto, but without success. Like with previous deferral requests, such as for President Al-Bashir, the international community turned out to have very different ideas about when Article 16 should be invoked. In light of the unsuccessful deferral requests of African states as well as the ongoing debate about the Court's complicated relationship with the Council, this paper examines the legal and political threshold of Article 16. The first part of the paper provides an overview of the conditions and consequences of a valid deferral, and discusses the four references that the Council has made to Article 16. The second part deconstructs the existing disagreement within the international community on when the Council should use its deferral powers.

With the Treaty of Amsterdam entering into force on 1 May 1999 the European Union has obtained legislative competence concerning judicial cooperation in civil matters. This competence includes the power to unify rules on applicable law (Art. 81(1), (2) letter c TFEU). There are already some European instruments based on this competence. All these instruments contain some identical provisions (e.g., ordre public, renvoi, escape clauses, overriding mandatory provisions). The article raises the question whether shared provisions should be taken out of these instruments and put into a new regulation (the so-called Rome ‘0’ Regulation). Such a Rome 0 Regulation could also deal with other aspects which are not yet covered by the existing instruments and which could also be placed in a general part of the rules on applicable law (e.g., qualification, preliminary questions, agency). Before he comes to the overall conclusion the author describes the advantages and disadvantages of such a Rome 0 Regulation. He takes into account not only the different legislative procedures within Article 81 TFEU for family and non-family law projects but also the special position of Denmark, the United Kingdom and Ireland within judicial cooperation in civil matters.

The EU Bank Recovery and Resolution Directive provides tools to deal effectively with unsound or failing banks. Some provisions of this directive are designated as overriding mandatory provisions as referred to in Article 9 Rome I Regulation. The author analyses the effectiveness of the designation of a rule as an overriding mandatory provision, given the principle of private international law that parties can choose the applicable law and the competent forum. His conclusion is that in an international context overriding mandatory provisions are not always as overriding or as mandatory as they may seem at first sight. This may be acceptable with regard to 'normal' overriding mandatory provisions. However, the author argues that financial stability is so important that overriding mandatory provisions that protect financial stability need special treatment.

By the Act of 27 November 2013, the Dutch Government has radically changed the provisions of its Penal Code pertaining to the exercise of extraterritorial jurisdiction (Arts. 4-8 Penal Code). The new rules take effect from July 1st 2014 onwards. Most importantly, the Act widens the scope of the passive personality principle, generalizes the application of the domicile principle, which equates permanent residents with nationals for purposes of the application of the active personality principle, and establishes jurisdiction over foreigners present in the Netherlands who have committed a serious crime abroad if extradition proves impossible (aut dedere aut judicare), even if international law does not oblige the Netherlands to do so. In addition, the Act brings order to the Penal Code's hitherto rather chaotic jurisdictional provisions by, inter alia, grouping the jurisdictional mandates based on international legal instruments together in one provision, and limiting the number of jurisdictional grounds on which offences can be prosecuted.