The responses of states and the WHO to the COVID-19 pandemic reveal the considerable weaknesses of international organizations. Although the Trump administration has misdiagnosed the WHO's ills, the WHO has indeed failed to meet the public health threat posed by the coronavirus. The WHO's responses to the current crisis demonstrate that it shares five disorders common to other UN system expert-driven organizations: overdependence on states; singular reliance on “managerial” approaches to enforcement; inflexible emergency declarations; absence of regularized systems for inter-regime collaboration; and common bureaucratic pathologies.

The Dominican Republic (DR) filed its declaration accepting the jurisdiction of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (Inter-American Court or Court) on March 22, 1999, and since then has been the subject of four judgments and a series of provisional measures. On November 4, 2014, however, the Constitutional Tribunal of the Dominican Republic (Tribunal) declared unconstitutional the government’s declaration accepting jurisdiction, implying that the Dominican Republic is not now, and perhaps never has been, under the Inter-American Court’s jurisdiction.

Transitional states have elected divergent strategies in dealing with their pasts. Some have opted not to confront the past at all by invoking general amnesty laws, whereas others have determined that some form of accountability is needed. Postapartheid South Africa presents a novel illustration of the attempts of a transitional state to balance the legal, political, practical, and cultural interests of its society as it moves toward the democratic ideal. In this vein, the purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to examine whether individual amnesty was the optimal method of accountability for South Africa to deal with its past; and second, to analyze the extent to which the Amnesty Committee has succeeded in its application of the individual-amnesty provisions and the effects of those efforts.

Having reviewed in the preceding Notes the characteristics and qualities of the sovereignty which finds expression in a state, it is proposed to consider now the more extensive type of sovereignty which affects politically the entire human race and territorially the whole earth, and to which reference was made in the Introductory Note. The reason for considering the lesser form first has been stated, and the soundness of that reason will become more apparent in the course of the succeeding argument.

On August 10, 1976, Greece addressed a communication to the President of the Security Council requesting an urgent meeting of the Council on the ground that “following recent repeated flagrant violations by Turkey of the sovereign rights of Greece in the continental shelf in the Aegean, a dangerous situation has been created threatening international peace and security.” On the same day, by unilateral application, Greece instituted proceedings in the International Court of Justice against Turkey in “a dispute concerning the delimitation of the continental shelf appertaining to Greece and Turkey in the Aegean Sea, and concerning the respective legal rights of those States to explore and exploit the continental shelf of the Aegean.” Also on the same day Greece filed a request for interim measures of protection asking the Court to direct that both Greece and Turkey

In the wake of nationalist movements directed against the determination of The Netherlands not to give up their rights to West New Guinea, the Indonesian central government in 1958 nationalized Dutch properties, among them tobacco plantations.

It is now over ten years since the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and its Protocol were completed.

This Current Development Essay discusses the international legal implications of constitutional amendments adopted in the Russian Federation by an “all-Russian vote,” a quasi-referendum from June 25 to July 1, 2020. The most important of these amendments gives the Russian Constitution priority over decisions made by international courts and treaty bodies. The amendments also address Russia's state succession to the Soviet Union. Another provision protects Russia's territorial integrity. The Essay discusses the background to these amendments, their content, and their significance for international law.

The Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity (LIBERTAD) Act of 1996, otherwise known as the Helms-Burton Act, became law on March 12, 1996. Title III of the legislation creates a federal cause of action, on behalf of U.S. citizens whose property was confiscated without compensation by Cuba, against those who “traffic” in that property. Several governments—notably Canada, Mexico and those of the European Union, whose corporate citizens are the principal “traffickers”—have denounced the legislation as an exercise of extraterritorial jurisdiction that violates customary international law. These governments apparently see nothing wrong with permitting—even encouraging—their nationals to use and profit from property that rightfully belongs to others. The United States not only commands the moral high ground on this issue; it also has the better of the legal argument.

In their eagerness to justify the “United States perspective” on the Kampala definition of the crime of aggression and on the International Criminal Court (ICC), Koh and Buchwald tend to invent imaginary enemies and to ascribe to them views that they do not actually hold. In so doing, the authors weaken a thesis that, in some respects, is not devoid of interest. From at least two points of view, however, their article is paradoxical, if not pathetic—exactly like the U.S. position.

On December 21, 2016, the Grand Chamber of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) dismissed an action brought by the Front Polisario challenging a decision of the Council of the European Union (EU) approving the conclusion of an agreement between the European Union and the Kingdom Morocco on the reciprocal liberalization of certain agricultural products. The CJEU held, based on the relevant rules of international law applicable between the EU and Morocco, that the agreement did not apply to the territory of Western Sahara. Apart from its obvious political overtones, the judgment is significant in further developing the CJEU's approach to the law of treaties and the principle of self-determination in international law.

Nationalization of foreign property and deprivation of contractual rights have again achieved prominence through measures in Iran, Egypt, Indonesia, and, more recently, in Cuba. The end of certain regimes often brings with it changes in political and social conditions. And yet recognition of acquired rights is the principal basis of intercourse in economic relations, as recognized by the law of civilized nations. International law, far from being an outgrowth of only Western concepts, is indeed an expression of fundamental principles embodied in long established legal systems throughout the world. Islamic law, for instance, which is of real significance for one sixth of the world population, in the Middle East, Pakistan, Southeast Asia and parts of Africa, clearly embodies the universal maxim of the protection of acquired rights.

An anomalous situation arises where governments desire foreign investments while at the same time rights in property and contractual relations are threatened and even destroyed. The Brazilian Judge Levi Carneiro said in the Anglo-Iranian Oil Co. Case:

History is replete with examples where states have interfered with foreign exchange markets in order to influence exchange rates. The trade conflicts between the two world wars, for instance, were fought not only via the imposition of tariffs, but also via competitive devaluations. Since then, straightforward competitive devaluations have become a rare phenomenon; contemporary scenarios, in which exchange rate policies are criticized for their potentially protectionist impact, tend to be much more sophisticated. The exchange rate policy followed by China is certainly the outstanding, yet not exclusive, example. In recent years policymakers worldwide have criticized China for maintaining an undervalued real exchange rate as part of its strategy of export-led growth.

Although careful scholarly treatment of the history of international law is now thriving, within U.S. courts that history now begins with one eighteenth-century treatise published in Neuchâtel, Switzerland, in 1758 and published in translation for modern readers under the aegis of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in 1916. This treatise is Emer de Vattel’s Droit des gens ou principes de la loi naturelle, appliqués à la conduite et aux affaires des nations et des souverains. My aim in this article is to appraise the elevation of Vattel to vaunted originalist heights in U.S. law. The claim that Vattel’s theory of the law of nations completely represents how the Founding Fathers (Founders) understood the law of nations should be rejected as a matter of history.