There has been an undoubted increase since the Second World War in the legal accountability of States in municipal courts. The comparative lawyer, G. Eörsi, discussing the position of the State in relation to the private law of tort writes:

‘Governmental liability is a relatively new phenomenon … A considerable number of States have eliminated the immunity of the State and have introduced direct liability of the State, even though in many countries enforcement of claims against the State is not allowed’.

Belligerent reprisals have long occupied a curious position in the law of armed conflict. They are one of the oldest means for the enforcement of that law, and, until recently, were widely regarded as indispensable. Yet the scope for abuse and the danger that reprisals, far from enforcing the law, can produce an escalating spiral of atrocities completely undermining respect for the law have also long been recognized. Thus, the Lieber Code of 1863 states that:

‘The law of war can no more wholly dispense with retaliation than can the law of nations, of which it is a branch. Yet civilised nations acknowledge retaliation as the sternest feature of war. A reckless enemy often leaves to his opponent no other means of securing himself against the repetition of barbarous outrage’.

A Round Table Conference involving the two member-Countries constituting the Kingdom of the Netherlands, i.e., the Netherlands and the Netherlands Antilles, and the six islands of the Netherlands Antilles, took place in March 1983 in The Hague. The subject was the constitutional position of one of the islands, Aruba. Acting on the assumption that each of the islands had the right of self-determination, the Conference accepted Aruba's decision to make use of that right and opt for independence, and thus secession from the Kingdom of the Netherlands, to take effect in 1996. In the interim Aruba would be granted separate status, i.e., as a Country within the Kingdom under the Charter of the Kingdom, for a transitional period of ten years.

On 27 June 1986 the International Court of Justice passed judgment in the case concerning military and paramilitary activities in and against Nicaragua. Because of a reservation that the United States had made when it accepted the jurisdiction of the Court, the Court could not pronounce a decision regarding the dispute insofar as it concerned multilateral convertions. As a resuld of this, the Court was compelled to base its judgment largely on rules of customary international law and general principles of law. The rules of customary law which were relevant for the judgment corresponded to a significant extent, as regards their content, to the rules of treaty law which the Court was unable to apply, such as the prohibition on the use of force of Article 2, paragraph 4 of the Charter of the United Nations. This led the Court to indicate in precise terms how rules of treaty law and rules of customary law which have a corressponding content can co-exist and how the existence of rules of customary international law can be established in general. In addition, the Court examined in some detail the existence and content of certain specific rules of customary international law.