The main purpose of the paper is to investigate the differences between the new international economic order (NIEO) advocated by the overwhelming majority of the members of the General Assembly and the existing order. To what extent are changes called for in the institutional and substantial legal rules that help to mould international economic relations on a world scale? Attention is paid especially to the principles on which these rules are based and to the modifications thereof that would be required for bringing about the NIEO.

The mastery of outer space as the basis of integrated battleground platforms is fast becoming a reality. As the two Gulf Wars and the Kosovo military campaign made clear, space assets are decisive in battle planning and execution. The contemporary move towards weaponization of space and its intersection with international law forms the basis of this article. This article analyses the militarization and weaponization of space. It is premised on the fact that the active move to militarization and weaponization of outer space that exposes the deficit of the international law space law regime. The article highlights the fact that the international space law legal regime now has a new game in the making for which it is in many ways ill equipped to handle.

Of the more than 140 major cases of armed violence recorded since World War II, which have claimed more victims than that war itself, only relatively few have been ended through the mediation of the United Nations. Moreover, there is no single case in which the United Nations were absolutely instrumental in the prevention of an armed conflict, though in some cases aggression may have been averted in the face of international pressure. This is a disappointing state of affairs for an organisation whose task, according to the Preamble of its Charter, is to ‘save succeeding generations from the scourge of war’. But even if we disregard the lofty wording of the Preamble, the Charter itself in Article 1 places the maintenance of international peace and security first among the aims of the organisation.

In order to stimulate the common market and the cooperation between businesses therein the European Union has always tried to remove the differences between the national corporate laws of the Member States. In 1968 the first directive on corporate law entered into force and since then a number of directives have been drafted and some of them have entered into force. One of the initiatives in this field is the 1985 proposal for a tenth directive concerning the cross-border merger of public limited liability companies.

This Special Issue is devoted to the commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the Second Hague Peace Conference of 1907. The First Hague Peace Conference took place in 1899, upon the initiative of the Russian czar Nicolas II. Its purpose was to elaborate instruments for the peaceful settlement of future serious international disputes, for the prevention of wars and undue increases of military budgets, and for the codification of the rules of warfare. Twenty-six states participated in the 1899 Hague Peace Conference, and it resulted in three main conventions and three declarations relating to the restriction of armaments, the prohibition of the use of certain weapons, the peaceful settlement of international disputes and the laws and customs of war.

This casenote outlines and analyses the US Supreme Court's 2006 decision in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld. In this case the Court held that suspected terrorists held in Guantánamo Bay were entitled to bring habeas corpus petitions to federal courts and to the benefits of the Uniform Code of Military Justice and Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions. The US Supreme Court eschewed the tradition of judicial deference to overturn the President's determination that military commissions could be established without congressional approval in the circumstances of the ‘War on Terrorism’. The casenote goes on to consider the aftermath of this decision, including the introduction of the Military Commissions Act 2006, and the implications of this Act for the future of Guantánamo Bay litigation.

The 1971 Constitutional Amendments (Amendments XX-XLII) gave far-reaching legislative competence to the six republics and two autonomous provinces that form the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. This line of development has been confirmed by the 1974 Federal Constitution and the Constitutions of the republics and of the autonomous provinces, enacted the same year. Article 281 of the new Federal Constitution enumerates the remaining federal legislative competence. In doing so, it reserves substantial powers in the area of contracts and property, but it leaves barely any room for federal intervention in the area of family law and succession. Outside the realm of legal relationships that are —in the event that they contain a foreign element— traditionally settled by the rules of Private International Law, under the new constitutions in Yugoslavia a diversity of legislations and accordingly conflicts of laws are possible in the area of taxation, social security, criminal law, some administrative matters such as identity cards, academic degrees, bar examinations, etc.