The law of the sea has long been a rich source of examples of the interplay, and occasional entanglement, of treaty and custom. This article discusses whether claims to close off the waters of ‘offshore archipelagos' by non-archipelagic States are consistent with international law against the background of this perennial issue. Analysis of the 1982 Law of the Sea Convention (LOSC) demonstrates quite clearly that there is no basis for such claims. ‘Going beyond the LOSC’ the article examines whether the matter remains subject to customary international law; whether subsequent practice may have established the agreement of the parties that the relevant provisions of the LOSC are to be interpreted as allowing their invocation by non-archipelagic States with offshore archipelagos; and whether there is ‘supervening custom’ that may have emerged since the adoption of the LOSC and that permits such claims by non-archipelagic States. Identifying and critically assessing the current state of international law on these fundamental questions of the relationship between treaty and custom, it is concluded that there is no basis for arguing that non-archipelagic States are able to claim any sort of special status for ‘offshore archipelagos’.

The United States and other actors such as the European Union impose “targeted sanctions” against foreign officials for acts carried out in their official capacity, or against legal entities of targeted states. This mirrors the practice and experience of the United Nations. The Security Council's practice of imposing comprehensive sanctions in the early 1990s quickly evolved into a practice of “targeted” or “smart” sanctions, to both improve effectiveness and to alleviate the significant effects of sanctions on the population of targeted states. However, the legal regime for resorting to sanctions is different when it comes to states acting unilaterally than it is for collective action within the framework of the UN Charter. This essay first clarifies some terminological issues. It then delves into the legality of the practice of unilateral “targeted sanctions,” and concludes that the most legally difficult aspect of these measures is their purported extraterritoriality.

Devika Hovell’s article is a very welcome and useful contribution to the debate regarding the “accountability” (whatever the term may mean) of international organizations, and the United Nations in particular. The author argues that scholarship has tended to focus on (descriptive) state practice to the detriment of (normative) theoretical appeal, and so the relevant discussion “has received inadequate theoretical attention.” In response, she sets out to tell the story of the United Nations being held to account through a highly theorized (and, if I may venture even at the outset, perhaps a bit stylized) scheme of contrasting “instrumentalist,” “dignitarian,” and “public interest” approaches to due process. This she applies to two case studies, one regarding targeted sanctions imposed by the UN Security Council, mainly in the context of antiterrorism; and one regarding the cholera outbreak in Haiti, where the United Nations has been implicated. Hovell critiques both the instrumentalist and dignitarian approaches, which correspond in broad terms to legal action at the international, and the domestic/regional level, respectively, and argues in favor of a “public interest” approach as better reflecting a “value-based” due process.

This introductory paper to the symposium hosted by the Leiden Journal of International Law, and edited by the authors, deals with the function of domestic courts as agents for the development of international law. The paper ‘sets the scene’ for the contributions to the symposium, which seek to trace the impact of domestic courts in the development of canonical areas of international law, such as jurisdiction, immunity, state responsibility, the law of international organizations/human rights, and the law of armed conflict/conduct of hostilities. It discusses the formal quality and actual influence of domestic-court decisions on the development of international-law, and introduces the concept of ‘agents’ of international-law development. This is the analytical perspective that the contributions to the symposium adopt.

The article revisits the Barcelona Traction judgment of the International Court of Justice, rendered forty years ago. It evaluates the lasting influence of the Court's pronouncements on the nationality of corporations and on obligations erga omnes, and uses the case to illustrate the Court's role as an influential agent of legal development. In this respect, it identifies a number of factors that can help to explain under which circumstances judicial pronouncements are likely to shape the law.