The growing sense of urgency regarding various global environmental problems has prompted calls for global legislative processes that could produce binding outcomes. However, as law-making gravitates into international forums, questions are raised regarding the legitimacy of international environmental governance. Much law-making today occurs under multilateral environmental agreements (‘MEAs’), such as the Climate Change Convention and its Kyoto Protocol. The article examines the role of Conferences of the Parties (‘COPs’) in MEA-based law-making. It juxtaposes the standard conception of international law-making and an alternative account, which sees law-making not simply as crystallized in formal consent procedures but as continuous interactional processes. The interactional account can help build the foundations for legitimate international environmental governance, and can provide important guidance to law-makers, even as they, even as they continue to operate within a formal, consent-based framework.

One year ago in this Journal Carty offered a reassessment of Schmitt's writings on international law, in an attempt to present them as a still valuable theoretical tool in a contemporary critical discourse on (neo)liberalism. Carty's proceedings, thought provoking as they may be, is unconvincing, because Schmitt's views on international law are indissolubly tied up with Nazi ideology and political purposes. Paradoxically a transfer in our time of Schmitt's Großraum concept provides a less critical argument against neoliberalism than at the best a dubious bolster to it.

In Germany v. United States (2001), the International Court of Justice ruled that the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations confers judicially enforceable rights on foreign nationals detained for prolonged periods or sentenced to severe penalties without notice of their right to communicate with their consulates. The Court also ruled that states which fail to give timely notice cannot later invoke procedural default to bar individuals from judicial relief. However, the Court did not clearly address other issues, such as requiring individuals to show prejudice to the outcome of the trial, or denial of certain remedies for Convention violations, which may effectively foreclose relief.

While the most important feature of the judgment given by the International Court of Justice in the LaGrand case is probably the conclusion that provisional measures indicated by the Court are binding, the decision is not without significance in the field of diplomatic protection.

On 27 June 2001, the International Court of Justice rendered its final decision in the case of LaGrand (Germany v. United States of America), which deals with many complex issues of international law. Apart from the very interesting substantive legal issues relating to the regime of consular assistance and death penalty in international law, the Judgment of the Court contains significant principles and reflections as to the essence and scope of international judicial jurisdiction. In contrast to the traditional approach to this question, the Court's Judgment is concerned with practical and specific aspects of jurisdiction in action, rather than dealing with general assumptions and conceptions surrounding the problem. From this point of view, the present contribution examines the significance of LaGrand as a case in which the traditional assumptions on international judicial jurisdiction are tested and reappraised.

The issue addressed here is what types of property are protected by the law and by what qualities they are chosen for such protection. It is then proposed to consider whether it is helpful and possible to draw an analogy between the concepts of “protected persons” and “protected property.” Limited space will be given to the issue of protection of cultural property. The protection of property in land warfare is the main target of examination. The focus when selecting evidence is placed on existing treaties and cases from international tribunals (including the ICTY) dealing with cases arising from international conflicts. The conclusion contains seven principles regarding the protection of property, as evidenced by practice.

An unlimited right of non-self-incrimination of witnesses before international criminal tribunals exists only during the pre-trial investigation (Article 55 ICC Statute); during trial the right is not unlimited, as the witness can be compelled to answer any question, either on the basis of an ex ante assurance of non-use of the evidence against him/her coupled with an assurance of confidentiality (ICC Rule 74(3)(c)) or on the basis of a guarantee of non-use without an explicit assurance to that effect (ICTY/ICTR Rules 90(F)). It is doubtful whether these rules are compatible with the principle nemo tenetur se ipsum accusare since this principle protects not only the accused but also the witness from a criminal prosecution which is based on her own statements.

The jurisprudence of the ICTY and the ICTR has denied this question, but accepts causality as a basic principle of criminal responsibility. Since the relevant articles in the Statute of the ICTY (Article 7(3)) and the ICTR (Article 6(3)), differ from Article 28 of the Rome Statute, which demands “a result of his or her failure to exercise control properly,” a comparative study is desirable. It has to include the question, whether this failure overlaps with the omission “to take all necessary or reasonable measures within his or her power,” and whether the last alternative “failed […] to submit,” requires at all a causal nexus.

At the beginning of the 21st century, the United States is criticized widely for its attitudes to treaty-making. It has sought to oppose, or withdraw from, a number of treaties such as the Kyoto Protocol or the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. Such behavior is conventionally attributed, in neo-realistic international law and political science theories, to the interests and ideologies that the US Government articulates. This essay uses a constructivist approach, namely focusing on how treaty-making is shaped by the interpretive work of people regarding the world they live in, to expand the analysis to include structural and cultural factors. The United States' treaty-making is also affected by the decentralized and participatory system of government, and by broader societal commitments to political transparency and culturally contingent understandings of risk.

On 10 May 2001 the European Court of Human Rights delivered the above Judgment which pronounces for the first time on the overall legal consequences of Turkey's invasion and continued military presence in Cyprus since 1974. The Judgment is important in many respects. It deals with a wide spectrum of systematic violations and decides certain significant legal questions in the sphere of international law and of human rights in particular pertaining to state responsibility, continuing violations, liability for missing persons, denial of access to homes and property, domestic remedies by de facto organs and administrative practice. The Judgment is also noteworthy for its various dissenting opinions.

This article discusses some of the legal issues that arise in the context of the possible establishment of an individual complaints procedure for violations of international humanitarian law, a proposal launched at the Hague Appeal for Peace in 1999. It examines such a proposal in the light of recent practice of human rights bodies, which suggests that the latter are not the most adequate means to improve supervision of compliance with international humanitarian law. The article argues that a separate body should be established and concentrates on the competence ratione materiae of such a body, the conceptualisation of the legal basis for individual complaints, non-state actors as respondents of complaints and applicable reparations for violations of international humanitarian law.

Even though Article 23 of the 1982 Convention on the Law of the Sea explicitly acknowledges the right of innocent passage through the territorial sea to nuclear vessels, many coastal states have recently forbidden or submitted to authorization the passage of ships carrying radioactive materials: this reveals a trend towards a more restrictive concept of “innocent passage.” As to straits used for international navigation and archipelagic sea lanes, the ius communicationis is still prominent and every measure that might prejudice the navigational rights of nuclear ships would not be consistent with the Montego Bay Convention.