The year 1994 marked a time of momentous change for the Leiden Journal of International Law. Quantity and quality of copy flow had reached a bare minimum, while the editors were overburdened with the administration of the Journal. It was concluded that the Journal would only have a future if it was reorganized rigorously. A business plan was drafted that set up a two-step transition process. The first step in this process was completed in 1995 with the influx of a group of experienced editors, the restructuring of sections of the Journal and a fresh lay-out. One of the most important changes was the development and introduction of the Hague International Tribunals Section, which involved the establishment of a close working relationship with the international judicial institutions in The Hague. The quality input in several field of the Journal had not only been a necessity to give our readers value for money, but also to prepare the Journal for the second step of the transition process, entering into a strategic alliance with a publishing house that could run the burdensome production and administration of the Journal. Sooner than expected, the Journal qualified for such an alliance and, this year, the negotiations with Kluwer Law International were brought to a successful conclusion.

Let's assume, if only for the sake of argument, that the Chechen people have the right to self-determination. Since the massive indiscriminate use of military force by Russia in December 1994, it is arguable that the Chechen people's right to internal self-determination has evolved into a right to external self-determination, i.e., into a right to secede from Russia. This is a reasonable assumption as we, as well as others, have pointed out on several occasions. However, the legal analysis has not been taken beyond this point. In this editorial, the legal consequences of the lawful exercise of the right to external self-determination by the Chechen people will be explored, albeit tentatively.

The simplistic ideas about the judicial function in international relations are very harmful to the public perception of the role of the International Court of Justice. […] The general public both expects too much of the Court, and is then disappointed that there is so much violence in the world which the Court does not seem to be effective to control.

In recent years, the UN Security Council has increasingly been involved in domestic conflicts. To explain this development, two lines of arguments have been used most often, both referring to the end of the Cold War. The first line of argument holds that the collapse of the Soviet Union has led to more domestic conflicts that manifest themselves at the international level, and the UN has simply responded to that growing problem. In the second line of argument, the collapse of the Soviet Union has led to an end of the anticipation and use of Soviet veto power in the Security Council, leading to more opportunities for the UN to take a more proactive stance in domestic conflicts. How plausible are these explanations? In this article, the argument is made that both lines of explanation rest partly on faulty premises.

The Rwanda Tribunal is an independent judicial institution established by the Security Council under Chapter VII of the UN Charter. It is the first international court having competence to prosecute and punish individuals for egregious crimes committed during an internal armed conflict. While the Government of Rwanda was a member of the Security Council and participated in the negotiations regarding the creation of the Tribunal, there were significant differences of opinion between it and the Council regarding the Tribunal's jurisdiction and competence. This article discusses the special features of the Rwanda Tribunal, as compared to the Yugoslavia Tribunal.

Governments have increasingly been giving attention to the need for, and prospects of, ensuring contestability of markets through international agreements. This paper explores what has been achieved so far in the context of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and what might be done to further enhance the ‘competition-friendliness’ of the multilateral trading system. The case of high-technology industrial rivalry is used for concreteness. High-tech is interesting because it cuts across many of the issues that are relevant from a systemic perspective, both ‘old’ (market access) and ‘new’ (investment, antitrust). We conclude that greater contestability of regulatory regimes in domestic legal orders may be beneficial. This can be pursued by giving private parties the right to contest actions of WTO member states before national courts.

United Nations peace-keeping is presently being faced with dynamic new challenges. The concept of peace-keeping is rapidly expanding, operations are being entrusted with new and innovative tasks, and are increasingly being deployed in intrastate conflicts. As the functions of peace-keepers vary, so too does the role and conception of peace-keeping. The new tasks entrusted to peace-keepers have brought with them new problems and difficulties. Controversial recent operations, such as those in Somalia and the former Yugoslavia, have particularly raised the issue of impartiality in the context of UN peace-keeping. Impartiality is traditionally a distinguishing feature of peace-keeping operations, yet its meaning and status remain unclear.

For several years, there has been a tension between differing philosophies of General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) dispute settlement. Commentators have taken different views on whether the system was fundamentally based on an arbitration or a judicial model. The Understanding on Rules and Procedures Governing the Settlement of Disputes (DSU), Annex II to the Marrakesh Agreement Establishing the World Trade Organization (WTO Agreement), represents the first extensive, negotiated agreement revitalizing the dispute settlement system in the history of the General Agreement. It represents nothing less than a complete reform of the GATT dispute settlement system. What is remarkable is that it is the product of extensive multilateral negotiations. In the past, modifications were made to the system on an incremental, case-by-case basis. Since the GATT came into existence in 1948, Articles XXII and XXIII have formed the basis of the dispute settlement mecha-nism. They are very sparse provisions, and most of the procedures that have come to characterize the pre-WTO GATT system have evolved over time as a result of experience in specific cases. Some of these procedural improvements were codified in Decisions and Understandings negotiated at various points in GATT history, but none were as comprehensive as the DSU.

The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) began more as a diplomatic forum where parties compromised disagreements than a court that settled them. The term ‘conciliation’ was used more frequently to describe the process than the term ‘dispute settlement’. However, over nearly half a century as the focal point of international trade law and diplomacy, GATT's dispute settlement procedures moved decidedly, if not steadily, from the diplomatic to the juridical. With the adoption of the Marrakesh Agreement Establishing the World Trade Organization (WTO), the juridical model clearly has prevailed.

One of the most controversial contests over the allocation of shared natural resources is now being waged by four former Soviet Union republics (Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Turkmenistan) and Iran over the riches of the Caspian Sea. The bilateral regime established by the former USSR and Iran governing the Caspian Sea, though technically still existing today, is inadequate to deal with the present-day complex issues of the use and allocation of natural resources. The situation is aggravated by unilateral claims of the states bordering the Sea. Although the coastal states are currently discussing how the regime of the Caspian Sea might be resolved, the issue is not yet settled and the positions of the parties remain divergent.

On 21 July 1995, Greece ratified the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (hereinafter the 1982 Convention). The entry into force of a widely accepted and comprehensive law of the sea convention has been a consistent objective of successive Greek administrations since negotiations began over two decades ago. Greece was very active during the Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS III]), voting in favour of the Convention and its Final Act with the intention of ratifying it at a later date. This article discusses the political and substantive context of the Greek ratification of the 1982 Convention by considering its impact upon Greek law of the sea interests and assessing its implications for Greek-Turkish relations in the Aegean Sea.

The European Community (EC) has recently announced its decision to begin dispute-resolution procedures in the World Trade Organization (WTO) against the United States (US) because of the latter's passage of the so-called ‘Helms-Burton’ law, which tightens the sanctions against Cuba by means of extraterritorial application. This will, in all probability, offer the WTO an ideal opportunity to define the limits of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade's (GATT) security exception. The security exception, contained in GATT Article XXI, is also included in other agreements annexed to the Agreement establishing the World Trade Organization (WTO Agreement), such as the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) and the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs). It provides an exception from all GATT (as well as GATS and TRIPs) obligations, including the all-important ‘most-favoured-nation’ non-discrimination rule. The security interests at issue must be those of a political, rather than an economic, nature. It should be noted that because there is no human rights and democracy exception to the GATT or other agreements annexed to the WTO Agreement, trade restrictions that are based either in whole or in part on these concerns, such as the measures against Cuba, are usually justified on the basis of the security exception.

The close relationship between security and minority protection is more than ever before manifest in today's (eastern) Europe. The adoption of far-reaching substantive commitments in the fields of the OSCE, and its increasing intrusion upon traditionally internal affairs of states, constitutes a positive framework for minority protection. A constructive combination of implementation mechanisms, preventive diplomacy instruments, and dispute-settlement efforts has produced positive results. Primarily concerned with the maintenance of security in Europe, the OSCE involves itself in minority issues, subject to the (dis)advantages of its political character. Despite its inherent weaknesses, the OSCE system has already contributed to the protection of minorities in Eastern Europe in various ways during the political transition in the former communist states, and it is prepared to continue, especially in the absence of other more effective systems.

In January 1996, tension escalated in the south-eastern Aegean as a result of Turkey's challenge of Greek sovereignty over the Imia rocks. Turkish ‘journalists’ from the newspaper Hurriyet occupied the Greek rocks and took down the Greek flag. This led to a build-up of Turkish and Greek naval forces near the rocks, thus creating a potential source of armed conflict. The tension was reduced after diplomatic intervention by the United States. However, there was a surprising absence of initiative on the part of the European Union in spite of the fact that the external borders of one of its member states had been challenged. The following will be a very brief account of the incident and the arguments of both parties, as evidenced primarily by their respective verbal notes.

In Dayton, Ohio, on 21 November 1995, after three weeks of proximity talks, the Bosnian parties, joined by the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the Republic of Croatia, initialled a General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina, together with twelve Annexes. Following an implementation conference held in London on 8 and 9 December 1995, the General Framework Agreement and its accompanying Annexes were signed in Paris on 14 December 1995. They came into force upon signature.

The original philosophy behind the 1950 European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (European Convention) was accurately summarized by Lord Layton when, in opening the first debates of the Parliamentary Assembly in 1949, he underlined “the great importance” of the guarantee of human rights: first for the sake of the individual European citizens who may benefit from it; secondly, as a means of strengthening the resistance in all our countries against insidious attempts to undermine our democratic way of life from within or without, and thus to give to western Europe as a whole greater political stability; and thirdly, as the acid test of whether countries should be admitted to this Council of Europe.

For weeks, the air strikes that NATO executed in defence of the ‘safe area’ of Sarajevo were ‘hot news’. The fact that NATO would, eventually, execute these strikes had seemed inevitable for some time. The well-informed observer had sufficient indications to this effect via television and the newspapers. However, the media, and all of the debates in national parliaments, have never, or have scarcely, addressed the legal basis for these strikes. At first sight, this appeared to be a relatively simple question, since NATO repeatedly stressed that it was acting on a mandate from the UN Security Council. At a second glance, however, the legal basis of the NATO actions gives rise to a number of questions for which the answers are less easy to ascertain.

Ever since the creation of the Albanian state in 1913, the Greek-Albanian relations have often been tense and emotional. Mainly focused on the presence and the rights of the Hellenic minority in Albania – and especially in the region of Northern Epirus which was the object of Greek territorial claims for many decades – over the years, these bilateral relations have known many periods of tension with international repercussions. Indeed, from the time of the League of Nations until the catalytic changes in Europe in 1989 and the post-bipolar international order, the issue of the Hellenic minority has dominated and defined the bilateral relations, and has often caused the reaction of international institutions and emotional outbursts of Greek public opinion. Furthermore, it has affected the broader Balkan stage and the security and stability of the region, with the interrelation of minority questions in all Balkan countries.

In the previous contribution, Dekker and Myjer maintain that, from the viewpoint of international law, there are at least two problematic issues with regard to NATO's actions in Bosnia-Herzegovina. The first issue concerns the way in which the Security Council has, in a legal sense, shaped its authority over NATO's actions. The second issue is the question of whether NATO is entitled, under its own constitution, to execute such actions. The contribution of Dekker and Myjer was prompted by NATO's air strikes in defence of Sarajevo, which took place in August and September 1995. Their criticism also applies to the current actions that NATO is undertaking in the implementation of the Dayton Agreement, as they later elaborated in the periodical Transaktie. First and foremost, it must be noted that Dekker and Myjer deserve full credit for pointing out these legal aspects of these recent NATO actions. That being said, their two main points of criticism are debatable and, in our opinion, paint a less than consistent picture of the possibilities that the UN and NATO have to offer, in particular the possibilities that may or may not be provided by those organizations' constitutions to flexibly respond to the demands posed at the present time, as well as the room to manoeuvre that is available under the changed international balance of power.