On 11 June 2010, the first Review Conference of the International Criminal Court (ICC) adopted Resolution RC/Res. 6 on the ‘Crime of Aggression’ by consensus, after years of debates and negotiations in the framework of the Preparatory Commission for the International Criminal Court and the Special Working Group on the Crime of Aggression. The resolution includes a definition of the crime of aggression and the conditions under which the Court could exercise jurisdiction with respect to the crime, while making the actual exercise of jurisdiction ‘subject to a decision to be taken after 1 January 2017’ by states parties. This outcome has triggered a broad variety of reactions. The UN praised it as a ‘historic agreement’ and a significant step towards a new ‘age of accountability’. Some non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have expressed concerns that the compromise deepens the gaps between states and leaves accountability loopholes. US legal advisor Harold Koh qualified the compromise as an opportunity for further constructive dialogue and positive engagement with the ICC.

The recent investor–state arbitration claim of Piero Foresti, Laura De Carli and others v. Republic of South Africa considers the extent to which international human rights obligations might be compromised by investor protections. In this regard, the paper examines the investor protection known as fair and equitable treatment (FET). It addresses this treatment obligation in the context of the South Africa–Italy bilateral investment treaty, and its invocation by investors who feel wronged by South Africa's black economic empowerment policies. It analyses the main interpretative theories of the FET clause, and concludes that it is to be interpreted as a self-contained treaty standard. This sui generis approach to interpreting FET clauses more accurately reflects the intentions of the state parties. Such a view supports the conclusion that international human rights should be considered in the interpretation of the FET clause.

Emil Cioran often likened the experience of abandoning his native Romanian for French to submitting to a straitjacket. Indeed, the language in which he would go on to secure his reputation was itself, he wrote, best understood as ‘the combination of a straitjacket and a salon’. It was only by undergoing an ‘exercise in ascesis’, suspending his commitments to what he regarded as an earthier, less regimented tradition, that he had been able to don the garb of a French author, if still only as a ‘Balkan reject’. The rigour and crispness of his adopted tongue flew in the face of his desire. The severity of its lucidity stifled his passions, or simply channelled them along directions deviating from their natural path. ‘[Y]et’, Cioran went on to observe, ‘it is precisely on account of this incompatibility that I have attached myself to this language’. So much so that what caused him the greatest grief of all was to see that ‘[t]oday, when this language is in full decline, . . . the French themselves do not seem to mind.’

The year 2009 was one of many anniversaries for the state-building project. It marked ten years since the United Nations began its bold experiments of state-building in East Timor and Kosovo, now the independent state of Timor-Leste and the embryonic Republic of Kosovo respectively. It was twenty years since Namibia held elections in the course of becoming independent, heralding a new post-Cold War activism. It was also ninety years since the League of Nations established the mandate system, which – even though it applied only to the colonies of enemy states defeated in the Great War – marked the beginning of the end of colonialism.

This contribution sets out the path towards consensus at Kampala. Before the Review Conference, two main issues remained unresolved: the question whether some form of consent by the alleged aggressor state should be required, and the role of the UN Security Council. Few had expected a consensus on a comprehensive package. The outcome of Kampala reflects significant compromises, but also a significant step to advance international criminal law.

The first Telders Competition was organized in 1977 on the occasion of the thirtieth anniversary of the Telders International Law Students Debating Society. Due to its success the Competition has been held annually ever since at the Peace Palace in The Hague. Nowadays it is considered to be the most prestigious and important international moot court in Europe. Teams from over forty European universities compete in national rounds, with the successful teams participating in the international rounds held in April in The Hague.

A new genre of scholarly writing has emerged in recent years in the field of what one can broadly call critical international theory. Its principal defining feature is an intense preoccupation with the phenomenon of the so-called ‘new world order’, which it tries to explain and describe through an analytical lens constructed primarily around two ideas: the idea of ‘empire’ and the idea of ‘imperial law’. In this article I attempt to provide a brief overview of this genre, which for the sake of simplicity I shall call henceforth the ‘new imperial law’ or NIL genre, and to reflect critically on its underlying ideological dynamics.

The authors participated in the ICC Review Conference held in Kampala in June 2010, which adopted by consensus a package agreement on the crime of aggression. This contribution presents some impressions from these negotiations. It was rather unexpected that consensus agreement could be reached, and the authors offer some explanations why this was possible. They also analyse the key elements of the agreement. After the international criminalization of aggression has been debated for decades, a decisive step has now been taken towards bringing this crime within the effective jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court.

Four discrete issues demonstrate how complex the crime of aggression under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court will be following the amendments approved in Kampala in June 2010. First, the absence of an explicit magnitude, or gravity, requirement for determining an act of aggression ignores the reality of how matters are referred to the ICC as well as how one first determines the existence of aggression. The gravity test of a crime of aggression is insufficient and misleading in arriving at a methodology for a logical determination of both acts and crimes of aggression. An agreed understanding in Kampala to resolve the dilemma is fraught with contradictions. Second, the amendments fail to address how the ICC should respond to a Security Council determination that an act of aggression has not occurred. Third, the lingering debate over how the Rome Statute should have been amended to activate the crime of aggression will burden the Assembly of States Parties, which should focus on arriving at a united interpretation of the procedures used to approve the Kampala amendments. Fourth, given the many permutations of how states will fall within or outside the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court regarding the crime of aggression, the resulting patchy landscape of coverage should surprise no one.

The International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg established a legal precedent for the proposition that waging a war of aggression is an international offence, for which individuals may be held criminally accountable. The efforts of the First Review Conference of the Rome Statute have resulted in a definition of the crime of aggression being included in the Rome Statute. Although a framework for the International Criminal Court's exercise of jurisdiction over the crime of aggression was also included in the amendments adopted at the Review Conference, such exercise of jurisdiction has not been given immediate effect and is subject to further action by the members of the Assembly of States Parties.