This paper draws on the insights of Marxism to outline a critical alternative course on public international law. It explains inter alia the changes in the doctrines and rules of international law by linking them to extra-textual realities. It contends that the character of contemporary international law is being transformed from bourgeois democratic international law to a bourgeois imperial international law. It sustains this conclusion by looking at certain developments in the world of international law in recent years. However, the outline offered is not exhaustive in terms of either the subjects considered or their analysis.

Marxian thought retains its relevance in the current period, not as a comprehensive replacement for liberal human rights theories, but as a source of critique that challenges those theories on the basis of the very values of human freedom and dignity that they espouse. The Marxian approach entails no general rejection of human-rights-oriented constraint, procedural or substantive, on efforts to achieve social change, but rather serves the human rights project by demonstrating how contradictory class interests manifest themselves as contradictions within the effort to apply liberal principles in a class-divided society.

The principle of judicial precedent set out by the Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia raises the five following issues. (i) Is the Appeals Chamber bound by its previous decisions? (ii) Are the trial chambers bound by Appeals Chamber decisions on both legal and factual issues? (iii) Are the trial chambers bound by the decisions of other trial chambers? (iv) Is the Appeals Chamber of the ICTY bound by the decisions of the Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) and vice versa? (v) Are the trial chambers of the ICTR bound by the decisions of the ICTY Appeals Chamber and vice versa? The author of this article aims to show that the Appeals Chambers, most trial chambers and individual judges of the International Criminal Tribunals comply with the principle of judicial precedent. However, the principle of judicial precedent is arguably weak, because it was established by case law only. The author also intends to demonstrate that the trial chambers and an individual trial judge of the ICTY have recently departed from the practice of judicial precedent in sensitive legal areas, that is (i) the test to be applied to a motion for a judgement of acquittal; (ii) the issue of evidence; (iii) the standard to be applied to a motion for cross-access to confidential documents in other cases; and (iv) the issue of provisional release.

This article is concerned with the remedy of ‘review’ provided for in the Statutes of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and for Rwanda, in Articles 26 and 25 respectively, which allows a convicted individual or the prosecution to seek the reopening of a case on the basis of a new fact. The main purpose of this article is to provide a comprehensive overview of how this remedy has been applied by the chambers of the ICTY and the ICTR. It focuses first on the relevant provisions set out in the Statutes and in the Rules of Procedure and Evidence of the two tribunals, and then reviews a range of international and national provisions. The latter examination clarifies the concept of review adopted, and reveals the interplay between international and national provisions. It also shows that the remedy of review can be seen as one application of the general principle of law that a convicted individual must have the right to seek the reopening of his or her case on the basis of a new fact, which may show his or her innocence, even after a considerable lapse of time. This article then examines the decisions rendered so far by the ICTY and the ICTR. It considers the factual context of each case and discusses how the applicable law has been interpreted and refined by the judges of the ICTY and ICTR appeals chambers. In conclusion, some suggestions are advanced as to how the pertinent Rules of Procedure and Evidence could be made clearer and perhaps fairer, in the light of the experience gained from the practice of the two tribunals and the provisions of the Statute of the International Criminal Court.

On 16 June 2003, the first Prosecutor of the newly established International Criminal Court (Court), Luis Moreno Ocampo, was inaugurated. He faces enormous challenges ahead in the short term, including the need to increase the number of states ratifying and implementing the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court and to demonstrate that criticisms of the Court and his powers made by the current administration of the United States of America in the course of its campaign to undermine the Court are unwarranted. This article describes the background to the establishment of a permanent independent Prosecutor within the Court, able to open, subject to extensive statutory and judicial constraints, investigations on the Prosecutor's own initiative. It then describes the statutory provisions establishing the post and defining the powers and duties of the Prosecutor. The article concludes with a discussion of the imaginative way in which he is setting up the Office of the Prosecutor and his innovative overall strategy as a leader in the global fight against impunity. As the Prosecutor demonstrates his independence, impartiality, fairness, and effectiveness in conducting trials, and his ability to inspire states to fulfil their obligations to complement his efforts by investigating and prosecuting these crimes themselves, the long-term prospects for the Court will become increasingly promising.

In the Öcalan case the European Court of Human Rights found itself faced with several issues that asked for a new interpretation of the European Convention on Human Rights. It had to decide on the extraterritorial scope of the Convention, on the question whether Abdullah Öcalan was arrested lawfully or illegally abducted, and on the death penalty. This article analyzes the decisions taken by the Court and puts them in a perspective of international law beyond the European Convention.

The author reviews an award rendered in March 2002 by a three-member arbitral tribunal established by the government of Canada in order to determine a maritime boundary between two Canadian provinces – Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland and Labrador. The tribunal's Terms of Reference required it to treat the provinces as sovereign states and to apply principles of international maritime boundary law in order to determine the boundary dividing their respective offshore entitlements as defined under domestic federal legislation. Given this reference to international law and the underlying interests at issue, the tribunal's award amounts to a classic continental shelf delimitation and makes significant contributions to the jurisprudence on international maritime boundary delimitation.

NATO is a collective self-defence regional organization that was established at the time of the Cold War, and the end of East–West confrontation gave rise to the debate about its future role. In the 1999 Washington summit a new strategic concept was promulgated, according to which NATO was to act as a collective security organization as well. The community of interest previously represented by the Eastern bloc has not been unequivocally replaced by a new one. Hence there is room for national interest to play greater role in the decision-making by the alliance. This decision-making is based on consensus, which is incompatible with assertions of strictly national policy. The institutional crisis within NATO in early 2003 was largely due to the transfer to within NATO of the disagreement among its member states in the UN Security Council over dealing with Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction. The crisis was ultimately resolved, but it exposed the serious limitations of the NATO decision-making process. While claims about the likelihood of NATO's survival seem premature, the recent institutional crisis may be a legitimate ground for considering institutional reform.

The first Telders Competition was organized in 1977 on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the Telders International Law Students' Debating Society. Student teams from the universities of Bonn, Cologne, Strasbourg, and Leiden participated. It was so successful that the competition has been held annually ever since. Nowadays it is considered to be the most prestigious and important international moot court competition in Europe. Teams from more than 40 universities compete in the national rounds, with 22 to 25 teams from as many European countries participating in the international rounds held in the Peace Palace in The Hague.

Books and Articles in the Field of the Prevention and Peaceful Settlement of International Disputes (Autumn 2003) Compiled by Ingrid Kost