Assessing the Reality of the Deep Seabed Regime

This Article argues that, in order to be effective, international law must stand in some direct relation to state practice and that the gap between legal prescription and state practice must not be too large or the law will be ineffective. The author examines this gap in relation to the deep seabed provisions of the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and suggests that, if the gap is not narrowed, the treaty may never enter into force

Post World War II Multilateral Treaty-Making: The Task of the Third United Nations Law of the Sea Conference in Perspective

This Article examines the potential obstacles that must be overcome before the creation of a global law of the sea treaty. The author argues that, even if the Conference proceeds quickly to approve a text, the treaty may never enter into force, because it will be very difficult and time-consuming for the new treaty to be accepted by a majority of the States in the world. The author reviews the various problems likely to be encountered, including signatures not followed by required ratifications, crippling reservations, and States\u27 reluctance to be party to treaties containing dispute settlement clauses. The author examines the precursors to the UNCLOS III treaty and what post-signature barrier might exist to the prompt entry into force of a global law of the sea treaty, and concludes that, given the patterns of the past thirty years, it is likely that a new treaty will never enter into force

International Law In The Reagan Years: How Much Of An Outlier

But is there reason to believe that the attitude and behavior of the Reagan administration towards international law have been unusually hostile? That fundamental question will be addressed in several ways. First, one component of President Reagan\u27s foreign policy, aid for the Nicaraguan Contras, will be discussed in some detail. That particular policy has produced perhaps the most sharply drawn, sustained conflict with international law. Second, a much briefer account will be provided about two other Reagan administration encounters with international law. Finally, an attempt will be made to provide some historical perspective to the 1981- 1988 period

The 1982 U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea: A Midstream Assessment of the Effectiveness of Article 309

This Article examines the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and the stand that it takes on reservations. The author argues that article 309 prohibits all reservations, while article 310 permits declarations and statements, provided these do not purport to exclude or modify the legal effect of the Convention. The author examines all declarations to determine if the letter and spirit of articles 309 and 310 are being met. The author further offers some observations about the effects of article 309 on participation levels in the treaty

Choice of Language in Bilateral Treaties: Fifty Years of Changing State Practice

The language in which treaties are written affects how widely and deeply treaty obligations are understood and, hence, followed. Of course, many problems arise when the treaty does not have the same meaning in different languages. The focus of this article is a different aspect of language in treaties--the choice of language or languages as official text or texts of bilateral treaties. Some research has addressed the broader issue of multiple use of languages in international organizations and multilateral treaties, but bilateral treaties have received scant attention. This inattention likely stems from the difficulty of examining the treaty practice of more than 150 states in tens of thousands of treaties, a difficulty now largely overcome by modern database management techniques. This article examines a lengthy period of state practice, the half century between 1920 and 1970, in order to describe and understand language choices. At first blush, this may seem like much ado about nothing. Of course, it is the content, not the choice of official text, that matters most. However, the approach taken here, based as it is on an enormous amount of state practice, can elucidate a number of important issues: *To what degree has English taken over the lingua franca role previously played by Latin and French? *Is there any political dimension to language choice? *Has the rise of the United States and the Soviet Union as superpowers after World War II been accompanied by an increased use of English and Russian as official texts? *Is the emergence of the Third World as a major force in the international system reflected in languages used in treaties

International Law - New Actors and New Technologies: Center Stage for NGOs

Technology and the information age are changing the allocation of power and authority in the international system with non-state actors such as intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) assuming decision-making roles previously reserved primarily to states. Professor David Johnston sees the information age as creating deep and broad disruptive breaches in our society, disruptions equal to those of the agricultural or industrial revolutions. Professors Keohane and Nye believe that the information age will alter the power structure of governments. Jessica Mathews\u27s stimulating article in Foreign Affairs argues both that the information revolution is shaking the foundations of state authority, the principal tenet of international law since 1648, and that the scholarly community has been slow to understand the profound ramifications of these changes. In presentations we made at the Fourth Joint Conference (American Society of International Law/ Nederlandse Vereniging voor Internationaal Recht) held in The Hague in 1997, we argued that the context within which international law operates has been shaped by two broad forces: (1) the state-centric character of the post-Westphalian international system; and (2) the Gutenberg global information system dominated by the printed word. The former has been analyzed extensively; the latter, at least so far as it affects international law, largely has been ignored. This Article focuses on NGOs to test their newly achieved prominence in international law-making by examining their role in the Landmines Convention and in the thwarting of the Multilateral Agreement on Investment. Are NGOs a manifestation of new governance structures emerging in the information age? Can they be a check against non-democratic, unaccountable, and aloof intergovernmental institutions that may complicate, rather than solve, problems?16 So that our discussion will be rooted in international law as usually understood, we examine both international law\u27s encounters with NGOs and how NGOs relate to the sources of international law

Choice of Language in Bilateral Treaties: Fifty Years of Changing State Practice

The language in which treaties are written affects how widely and deeply treaty obligations are understood and, hence, followed. Of course, many problems arise when the treaty does not have the same meaning in different languages. The focus of this article is a different aspect of language in treaties--the choice of language or languages as official text or texts of bilateral treaties. Some research has addressed the broader issue of multiple use of languages in international organizations and multilateral treaties, but bilateral treaties have received scant attention. This inattention likely stems from the difficulty of examining the treaty practice of more than 150 states in tens of thousands of treaties, a difficulty now largely overcome by modern database management techniques. This article examines a lengthy period of state practice, the half century between 1920 and 1970, in order to describe and understand language choices. At first blush, this may seem like much ado about nothing. Of course, it is the content, not the choice of official text, that matters most. However, the approach taken here, based as it is on an enormous amount of state practice, can elucidate a number of important issues: *To what degree has English taken over the lingua franca role previously played by Latin and French? *Is there any political dimension to language choice? *Has the rise of the United States and the Soviet Union as superpowers after World War II been accompanied by an increased use of English and Russian as official texts? *Is the emergence of the Third World as a major force in the international system reflected in languages used in treaties

The 1982 Convention and Customary Law of the Sea: Observations, a Framework, and a Warning

This Article examines the relationship between the 1982 Law of the Sea Convention and customary international law of the sea. The authors warn against the simple inquiry of whether the 1982 Convention codifies existing customary law, and propose a three-category approach with which to analyze the Convention\u27s provisions. The authors argue that the relationship between the 1982 Convention and customary international law is an organic, interactive process that will preoccupy legal scholarship for the rest of the decade and that any attempt to arrive at a definitive treatment of this issue would be impossible