This paper analyzes the legal implications of the Draft Resolution and Draft Agreement Relating to the Implementation of Part XI of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea of 10 December 1982, as well as the effectiveness of the proposed arrangements under international law.

On June 29, 1993, President William J. Clinton transmitted to the Senate, for advice and consent to ratification, the Convention on the Marking of Plastic Explosives for the Purpose of Detection, with Technical Annex, done at Montreal on March 1, 1991. The Convention is aimed at precluding the recurrence of incidents such as the terrorist bombings of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in December 1988, and UTA (Union de Transports Aériens) Flight 172 over Niger in September 1989, as well as other incidents in which plastic explosives were utilized. To this end, it requires states producing such explosives to mark them at the time of manufacture with a substance enhancing their detectability by commercially available mechanical or canine detectors. The Convention also requires states to ensure the implementation of controls over the sale, use, and disposition of marked and unmarked plastic explosives.

By two circular notes, both dated December 22, 1993, the Secretary of State informed the Chiefs of Mission at Washington,,first, of recently enacted congressional legislation related to nonpayment of parking fines or penalties owed to the District of Columbia, and second, of a new policy with respect to payment of parking tickets, effective January 1, 1994, that the Department of State had initiated in response to congressional concerns about the problem and in cooperation with the District of Columbia.

On July 28, 1994, the United States voted at the United Nations General Assembly in favor of a resolution endorsing the new Agreement that essentially amends the deep seabed regime (Part XI) of the 1982 Convention on the Law of the Sea and calls on states to ratify the Convention. Shortly thereafter, it signed the new Agreement. Plans call for the Convention to be submitted to the Senate for its advice and consent to ratification in October 1994 and for hearings to be held during the next Congress in the spring of 1995. By signing the Agreement, the United States will provisionally apply the deep seabed regime, as amended, until the United States becomes a party to the Convention or decides not to do so. In this paper I examine whether such provisional application is appropriate under the U.S. system of government.

At the forty-eighth session of the General Assembly, the Sixth (Legal) Committee reviewed the annual reports of the International Law Commission (ILC), the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL), the Special Committee on the Charter of the United Nations and on the Strengthening of the Role of the Organization (Special Committee), and the Committee on Relations with the Host Country (Host Country Committee). The Sixth Committee also considered proposals for two new legal instruments relating to (1) the jurisdictional immunities of states and their property, and (2) the safety and security of United Nations personnel. Other items covered by the committee included a proposal to request an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice on questions regarding extraterritorial jurisdiction, as well as topics concerning international terrorism, economic relations, procedural aspects of the United Nations Administrative Tribunal and the United Nations Decade of International Law (Decade).

Two of the most significant events of the 1980s were the fall of the Berlin Wall and the subsequent reunification of Germany. Since the beginning of the 1990s, however, the euphoria that greeted these events has given way to concern as Germany adopts measures to deal with the realities of reunification against a background of general political and economic instability in the former Communist states of Eastern and southeastern Europe. Of the many post-reunification problems, the influx of refugees into Germany has predominated.

On June 20, 1994, Ambassador Harriet C. Babbit, the U.S. Permanent Representative to the Organization of American States, deposited on behalf of the U.S. Government the instrument of ratification of the “Protocol of Washington,” adopted on December 14, 1992, by the Sixteenth Special Session of the General Assembly of the Organization of American States and signed by the United States on January 23, 1993, and the “Protocol of Managua,” adopted by the Nineteenth Special Session of the OAS General Assembly on June 10, 1993, and signed that day by the United States. The U.S. Senate had given its advice and consent to ratification of the Protocols on May 17, 1994, with two-thirds of the Senators present and concurring.