It is not generally appreciated that Francis Mann was not an international lawyer at all by training. His thesis at Berlin University was in company law. It was only after he had been in England for some time that he began to write about private international law,1 and his interest in public international law was developed as a result of his friendship with Sir Hersch Lauterpacht. It was not until 1943 that he published anything about public international law, and in that year he published a substantial article in two parts on the relationship between national law and international law, in which he built on the previous work on Judicial Aspects of Foreign Relations by Louis Jaffe2 and on acts of state by Sir William Holdsworth.3 Subsequently he came to make this subject his own, at least in England,4 where the subject has never attracted the attention which it has attracted in the United States.5

The development of international organisations and the increasing significance of their role in a wide range of fields, has put at issue the adequacy of the rules governing their operation, with regard to the needs of modern justice. In particular, the question of the scope of the immunity from jurisdiction of international organisations is the subject of some debate, as the multiplication of disputes involving international organisations has led courts to address this topic with increasing frequency.1

The protection offered to individuals by remedies in public law and tort law is developing in all jurisdictions. The past few years have witnessed an increasingly important European dimension to the tort liability of public authorities. European Union law and European Human Rights law have added to the constitutional protection of tort claims against public authorities already established as a matter of domestic law in many European countries.

On 17 April 2002, Canada will mark the 20th anniversary of the adoption of its bill of rights—the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. At the time, it seemed a momentous event to many, a strange thing to do. True, Canada was a bi-jural country, thanks to Quebec and the Civil Code. Nevertheless, the rest of the country sat solidly in the common law tradition. Codes, or so we thought, were anathema to common law systems that prided themselves on protection of rights through the incremental growth of precedent.

In November 2001, a new weapon was added to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation's2 arsenal used to protect and preserve the world's cultural heritage, in the form of the Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage.3 This Convention, while not yet in force, will complement UNESCO's three other heritage conventions, the 1954 Hague Convention on the Protection of Cultural Heritage in the Event of Armed Conflict,4 the 1970 Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property (1971)5 and the 1972 Convention concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage.6

The extent to which judicial review is granted and effectively exercised is a key element for the evaluation of any modern legal system. The principle of judicial review provides a basic protection for individuals and prevents those exercising public functions from abusing their powers to the disadvantage of the public. During the last quarter of the twentieth century, the circumstances in which the courts in the United Kingdom have been prepared to intervene in order to provide relief for unlawful administrative action have expanded in spectacular fashion.2 The incorporation in the UK of the European Convention on Human Rights on 2 October 2000 in the UK marks a significant change in this field.

Legal scholars approach law in many ways. They are dedicated to various trends such as ‘law as rules’, ‘law as system’, ‘law as culture’, ‘law as tradition’, ‘law as social fact’, ‘law in context’, ‘law and history’, ‘law and economics’, and ‘law and legal theory’. Most comparative lawyers also are aligned to these trends. Some of the trends share belief in the reality of mobility of law, seeing law reform to be partly related to choice from pools of models supplied from a number of legal systems. There is, however, disquiet as to the appropriateness of the phenomenon of ‘legal transplants’ as the predominant explanation of law reform. The disquiet is related both to this mode of law reform and to the conceptual frame suggested by the terminology. It is said that law reform should be from within, and that since a transplanted institution continues to live on in its old habitat as well as having been moved to a new one, the choice of the word ‘transplant’ is inappropriate.1

The recent reform adopted by the French Parliament, the Loi of 15 June 2000, touches upon a wide range of matters from investigation and detention through to trial and appeal, all within a project designed to ‘reinforce the presumption of innocence and the rights of victims’.1 It is part of a broader reform package which originally included strengthening the independence of the procureur2 from the hierarchical control of the Minister of Justice and changing the way in which magistrats3 are selected,4 together with the measures already enacted in June of 1999 to simplify and clarify aspects of criminal procedure and to reduce delay.5 A large part of the June 2000 reform seeks to strengthen the rights of the accused and the safeguards designed to ensure her proper treatment at all stages of the criminal process. Such rhetoric and aspirations stand in contrast to the Home Office and government discourse to which we have become accustomed on this side of the Channel, a discourse dominated by macho language expressing a desire to ‘get tough’ and ‘crackdown’ on crime and presumed criminals.6 Against the backdrop of almost mandatory defence disclosure and the curtailment of the right to silence in this jurisdiction, provisions which strengthen the rights of the accused and provide her with more information about the case against her together with greater opportunities to influence the pre-trial investigation, will make English criminal justice scholars nostalgic for a time when the rights of the accused were seen as something other than ‘a criminal's charter’.

The relationship between the global and the local is one of critical importance to all regions of the world. In the resolution of the tension between the irresistible surge of globalisation and the undeniable facts of society as it actually exists in the various localities which together comprise the very world which is presumably the object or the subject-matter of globalisation, law lies at the forefront. It is, one might say, the very intellectual battlefield which we have selected for the resolution of the major problem facing human society at the turn of the century. The purpose of this article is therefore to investigate, in a somewhat narrative fashion the relationship between the global and the local in the context of law in South East Asia. The topic is clearly too large to be dealt with in a short space with the rigour and articulation it really deserves, but it is hoped that the approach adopted will provide some kind of a frame of reference for regarding, studying, and hopefully improving, the law in the South East Asian region; and will perhaps focus a pencil of light on the problems of the global and the local in this particular regional context.

For lawyers in general, and international lawyers in particular, democracy is a neglected concept. Discourse is dominated by the ideas of human rights for individuals and minority or self-determination rights for groups. Those who seek greater protection for vulnerable members of a community argue for the recognition of new rights, or the more effective implementation of existing rights. They do not argue for more democracy. Indeed, given that claims for human and minority rights are not made only against authoritarian governments, but also democratic ones, there must exist an implied assumption that democracy is, by itself, not capable of protecting the interests of vulnerable minorities. Moreover, as the form of government which apparently venerates the will of the majority, democracy might be considered by some as being downright hostile to the interests of individuals and minorities.

A long time ago hens did not lay white or brown eggs but eggs in primary colours: red, yellow and blue. Since, depending on the colour of the eggs, their taste and quality varied, the farming industry split into red, yellow and blue industries catering for different markets. Those industries that dealt with the respective eggs became over the years highly competitive. And what was initially no more than a common understanding, namely, that hens laying red eggs belonged to the red industry, while hens laying blue and yellow eggs belonged to the blue and yellow industries, turned over the years into customary egg law, with each industry having its clearly demarcated area of competence. As it happened, due to interbreeding, some hens normally laying, for example, red eggs would very occasionally lay purple eggs or orange eggs. Also on occasion, some hens would stop altogether from laying eggs of a primary colour, but would lay orange, purple, brown or green eggs. These eggs and hens presented a problem, albeit not a severe one, as they remained very much the exception. Hens laying blue eggs were kept apart from hens laying red eggs and from those laying yellow eggs. Nevertheless, solutions to these problematic eggs and hens had to be found.

Pluralism is a main feature of Nigeria as a country. There is ethnic pluralism.1 The pre-colonial Nigeria comprised of over 250 nation states embracing over 500 ethnic and linguistic groups.2 These ethnic groups spread across the three main geographical units in the country, namely, the north, the west, and the east. The north was dominated by the Hausa-Fulani and the Kanuri peoples, the west by the Yoruba speaking tribes, and the east by the Igbos.

In the Six Day War in June 1967, East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip came under Israeli military occupation, as well as the Sinai Peninsula and the Golan Heights. On 22 November that year, the UN Security Council unanimously passed Resolution 242, which it was hoped would provide a route to a permanent peace. It seems clear that Resolution 242 now has binding force1 and that it is accepted by all parties today that Resolution 242 sets out the principles which must be applied in order to reach a settlement. The Resolution is recited in the preambles to the Oslo Accords.2 This means that, in addition, it is binding on Israel and the PLO by agreement.3

The practice of imposing economic sanctions in order to influence the actions of states and other parties—historically with varied levels of actual effectiveness—has a long and chequered history.2 Given, however, that more than 90 per cent of the world's trade is carried by sea,3 it is one particular form of sanction management—the ‘so called economic weapon’ of naval blockade— which tends to dominate the implementation of sanctions regimes.4 Yet despite the frequency with which naval forces are used to implement maritime sanctions—or perhaps because of the long but erratic history of naval embargo and blockade—the regime as a whole remains haunted by some uncertainties as to its conceptual basis. As WL Martin observes, ‘some measures such as “pacific blockade”, have at times acquired a technical meaning’ which has left them ill-equipped to deal with and adjust to new developments in blockade practice.5 Even prior to 1914, the notion of ‘blockade’ was a dualist concept. On one hand, it was clearly a weapon of war.6

An issue has recently arisen in international criminal law concerning the gravity of the offences listed in the Statutes of the International Tribunals: Should offences be ranked according to their seriousness and, hence, as entailing heavier or lighter punishment? Should the same act when charged as a crime against humanity or genocide be punished more severely than when charged as a war crime?

In September 2000 the European Commission published its long-awaited proposed replacement for Regulation 17, the Proposal for a Council Regulation on the Implementation of the Rules on Competition laid down in Articles 81 and 82 of the Treaty (hereafter the draft regulation).1 The debate on the draft regulation has focused on the abolition of the notification system, the role of the national courts, and the role of the national competition authorities (hereafter the NCAs). However, there is one significant overlooked issue, namely the extent to which the investigation provisions of the draft regulation comply with the case law of the European Court of Human Rights (hereafter ECtHR).2 Given the paucity of the ECtHR's case law in 1961 it is understandable that the implications of the European Convention of Human Rights (hereafter ECHR) for the investigative provisions of what was to become Regulation 17 were not at that time given any great consideration by the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers. However, there is now an extensive human rights case law, developed by the Strasbourg authorities which, it is argued, casts a major shadow over the Commission's existing and proposed investigative powers. It is further argued that the case law of the European Court of Justice (hereafter ECJ) and the Court of First Instance (hereafter CFI) in respect of fundamental rights as general principles of law, does not provide an equivalent standard of protection to that offered by the ECtHR.

On 1 March 2001 Council Regulation (EC) No 1347/2000 of 29 May 2000 on Jurisdiction and the Recognition and Enforcement of Judgments in Matrimonial Matters and in Matters of Parental Responsibility for Children of both Spouses (Brussels II) entered into force.1 In the United Kingdom at least this significant step went relatively unnoticed. Nevertheless, the Regulation marks a new departure for the European Community and is likely to be but the first in a series of instruments dealing with family law issues. This article will use an analysis of the evolution of the Brussels II initiative to explore how and why the European Community has been able to move into an area not innately associated with traditional European goals.2 It will then reflect on the wider impact of the Regulation and any future initiatives for private international law and family law in Europe.

[I]t is the transformation of custom into customary law—into something that State courts will recognize, enforce and require—that disrupts the continuity of the indigenous systems. In pre-colonial times … [the settlement of disputes] … depended … on the mutual processes of negotiation and compromise. There is no need to romanticize these processes…. But the important point in this context is that norms play a very different part in negotiations to that which they play in legal processes. They may be used to stake out negotiating positions as a starting point from which to proceed or as a sounding board as to the correct procedure in the cultural and symbolic sense, but they cannot be cited as rules or conditions that will be imposed.1

At first sight, the Territorial Sea (Amendment) Order 19981 is an unremarkable instrument. Its explanatory note states that it amends the Schedule to the Territorial Waters Order in Council 19642 ‘by adding a new baseline between the Mull of Kintyre and Laggan, as well as by making minor changes to [three points scheduled in the 1964 Order] which result from the publication of a new, larger scale chart of the area’. In fact, the note is a model of economy of information disguising the difficulties which led to the Order's addition of a further straight baseline, enclosing the Firth if Clyde, to the system of straight baselines starting in the north at Cape Wrath and which, before the above amendment was made, had ended in the south at the Mull of Kintyre. This is the story behind the addition of the new segment. The sketch map indicates the general cartography of the relevant area.

Amnesties presuppose a breach of law and provide immunity or protection from punishment. Historically amnesties were invoked in relation to breaches of the laws of war and were reciprocally implemented by opposing sides in an international armed conflict. The impact of the two world wars in the first half of the twentieth century, however, had considerable implications not only for the use of amnesties, but also for their legality under international law. The scale of the First World War precipitated a new phase of unilateral amnesty for the victors and prosecutions of war criminals for the defeated aggressor states.1 This precedent was followed after the Second World War,2 with the establishment of the first ‘international’3 criminal court, the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg. However, the horrors perpetrated during the Second World War also prompted the development of a branch of international law aimed at recognising and protecting human rights in an attempt to prevent such atrocities being repeated.