Topic 1

On June 21, 2000, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled (14-2) that it lacks jurisdiction to adjudicate the dispute brought by Pakistan against India in September 1999. The Court, which is the principal judicial organ of the United Nations entrusted with settling legal disputes between sovereign States, consists of 15 judges elected to nine-year terms by the UN General Assembly and Security Council, together with two judges ad hoc appointed especially for the case by Pakistan and India. The ICJ has its seat at the Peace Palace in The Hague, the Netherlands.

In a long-awaited decision confronting the intersection of federalism and foreign relations, the Supreme Court has struck down a Massachusetts law restricting state purchases from companies doing business in Burma. The Court's June 19 ruling in Crosby v. National Foreign Trade Council was on narrow, non-constitutional grounds. Although the decision puts similar state and local anti-Burma measures at least temporarily on ice, it is unlikely to emerge as the final word on foreign policymaking by state and local actors.

 

A number of recent decisions have been issued by the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg (the "ECHR"), which are significant not only for their content, but for the broad scope of the subject matter addressed.(1) The ECHR provides European nationals, and others, a forum that transcends national court authority for adjudication of issues in instances where they believe their human rights, as guaranteed by the European Convention on Human Rights (the "European Convention"),(2) have been violated. 

 

I. Introduction

On February 3, 2000, a court in Senegal indicted Hissène Habré, the head of state in Chad from 1982 to 1990, for presiding over a pattern of torture during the period of his rule in Chad.  Habré fled from Chad to Senegal after being overthrown in 1990.  He has lived in Senegal since then.

The case is similar to, but not the same as, the proceedings in the United Kingdom aimed at the extradition of former Chilean head of state Augusto Pinochet to Spain for prosecution on charges of presiding over systematic torture in Chile while he was in power there.

The proposed coalition to form a government between Austria's People's Party and Mr. Jorg Haider's Freedom Party (FPO) sparked widespread protest and criticism within the European Union (EU) and also outside Europe. The reason for this outcry is none other than Mr. Haider's policy statement and past remarks which seem to promote xenophobia, by inter alia proposing discriminatory immigration policies, and praising Nazi practices before and during World War II. On a number of occasions Mr. Haider publicly praised as honorable men Austrian Waffen SS veterans.