The author describes the main characteristics of the English judicial system and its methodology. A central topic is the so-called judicial legislation, as is illustrated by the developing case lawwith respect to the tort of negligence. The method has the twin advantages of flexibility and pragmatism and it also has the advantages of speed. But there is a minus side also. First, the development of the law in this way can only be achieved at the expense of certainty. Secondly, it involves the alteration of the law, sometimes a quite radical alteration, without any extensive consideration of the practical and economic results such as would take place in the course of parliamentary scrutiny and debate. Judges are not the elected representatives of the people and the methodology of English Judges which results in the development and alteration of the law without the benefit of parliamentary debate may not perhaps be altogether a satisfactory democratic process to a constitutional purist.

In this article the author states that until now the lack of specific guidelines might explain the fact that the application of the Aerospatiale ruling has been far from uniform in American practice. Nevertheless, some issues that had been considered by Courts and Commentators before Aerospatiale have now been resolved.

Alley and Prescott claim that the Hague Evidence Convention has represented a very positive step in international legal cooperation between nations which employ considerably different legal procedures. The authors discus recent developments and hope that there will be a continuation of construe five building of the US. and other signatory states upon their past experiences in mutual cooperation.

In many member states of the European Community legal problems arise when implementing EEC environmental directives, especially those regarding dangerous substances. It has been said that sometimes these problems are caused by the fact that it is not always clear to national legislators what amount of discretion is available to them. This hypothesis is investigated here, mainly in relation to the way the Netherlands Chemical Substances Act has transposed dangerous substances directives into Dutch national law.

This article deals with recent developments in the United States' refugee legislation and policies. After an examination of the relevant procedural aspects, the author discusses several concepts and criteria that play an important role in the decision whether an alien will be granted asylum in the United States. Despite recent jurisprudence, the related concepts of ‘wellfounded fear’ and ‘clear probability’ of persecution remain vague and illdefined. Thus, according to the author, it is doubtful whether the present standards of United States refugee law contribute to the protection of truly politically persecuted. Besides, the concept of ‘safe haven’ should not replace the concept of ‘firm resettlement’.

The international flow of information produced by international press agencies is discussed in this article. The author shows how the position of the Third World with respect to the alleged imbalances in the international communication infrastructure, both quantitative and qualitative, has led to two legal developments. On the one hand, the ‘right to communicate’ was formulated in addition to the traditionally recognized freedom of information. On the other hand, the concept of a New World Information Order has been developed. The ideological battle between the West and the Third World, which has dominated the discussion on these concepts since the early 1970s, should, according to the author, not impair the development of a viable technological infrastucture in the Third World. Development assistance could be used to give new and independent news agencies access to the international flow of information.

Although states are no longer the sole subject of international law, they are in any event still its principal subject in (he current phase of development. And they will inevitably remain so for as long as the world community is organized in the form of a community of states.

On October 31, 1988, in a ceremony at the Beverly Hilton Hotel attended by Congressmen and members of the artistic community. President Reagan signed the 1988 Berne Convention implementation Act. This Act allowed the United States to join the international Berne Convention lor the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works as of March, 1989. Although the Act somewhat expands the availability of U.S. copyright protection to European atilhors, it affects U.S. authors' rights even less, practically speaking. Perhaps that explains why only three major U.S. daily newspapers, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times, briefly mentioned this historic moment for the internal ional copyright environment. This article explores why and how the U.S. has joined the Berne Convention after more than 102 years, and the effect that this will have un the availability of U.S. copyright protection to foreign authors. Before considering the technical consequences of the Berne Convention Implementation Act, we give a brief overview of two relevant international copyright treaties and their major differences.

Most European courts face overloading. Therefore the Single European Act has incorporated Article 168A into the lifiC Treaty. According to this article the Court of Justice of the European Communities may request the Council to create a Court of First Instance with a limited jurisdiction. This request has been made by the Court on September 29, 1987; by its decision of October 24,1988 the Council has approved of this request. The reason behind this proposed change in the procedure before the Court of Justice is the enormous pile of cases on the desks of the Judges in Luxembourg. Apart from this, already institutionalised remedy, other ideas are also circulating in Luxembourg with a view to improve the existing practice of the Court of Justice. One of these ideas concerns the possibility of abandoning the institution of Advocates-General by merging them with the corps of judges. Only in cases of exceptional interest one of the judges could act as a Advocate-General. I do not intend, however, to give a full account of the possibilities which have already been put forward in order to improve the working of the Court of Justice. This note will look at the other ‘European Court’, that is, the European Court of Human Rights (European Court), which is one of the organs created by the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (European Convention). This Court is ill so overloaded with cases, just as its counterpart in Luxembourg. Kill unlike the constitutional changes in the European Communities, none of the proposal measures to improve and accelerate the work of the European Court has been incorporated in an amendment of, or an additional protocol to the European Convention.

On 17 September 1984, Regulation 2641/84, also called the EC New Trade Policy Instrument, or simply the New Instrument, became effective. Pursuant to the New Instrument, a Community industry can File a complaint with the EC against an illicit trade practice of a foreign government. From the effective date of the New Instrument until the day of writing of this article (February 1989) four complaints have formally been lodged.

An article in a previous issue of this journal discussed some developments which might lead to a more developed system of pre-merger control in the European Community. Any regulation in that area will be largely a matter of antitrust law. The EEC Treaty provides for the institution of a system ensuring that competition in the common market is not distorted. The regulation will be part of that system. It will require ‘prenotification’ of mergers exceeding certain thresholds in order to enable the European Commission to judge their likely impact on the structure of the relevant product market and, if necessary, to prohibit such mergers. Most mergers will not be prohibited and not even be subject to the control envisaged by this new regime.

The case put before the teams this year in the Telders Moot Court Competition, entitled The Right to Insurgency Case, combines problems of general international law withsome specific topics related to help for insurgents, intervention and effective government, as well as some human rights related issues such as the right to religious liberty and minority rights.