International Organizations

I. Introduction: 

 

On November 8, 2000, the heads of the delegations of Belize and Guatemala signed an agreement to adopt a comprehensive set of "confidence-building measures to avoid incidents between the two countries", according to the press release E-195/00 issued by the Permanent Council of the Organization of the American States (OAS) in Washington, D.C. This agreement was described by the Secretary-General of the OAS, Cesar Gaviria, as a milestone. 

 

The Codex Alimentarius (Codex) is a commission jointly sponsored by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Health Organization (WHO). Codex adopts standards that may be used by its 162 participating governments to develop national regulations. Codex is currently developing a variety of international standards for the trade of genetically modified food (GMF).(1)

 

I. Introduction

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.

            On June 28, 2001, the Government of Serbia sent Slobodan Milosevic, the former president of Yugoslavia, to The Hague for trial on charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes.  The surrender of Milosevic complied with an international arrest warrant issued by a United Nations judicial body, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, headquartered in The Hague. Milosevic, a Serb nationalist leader, was indicted by the tribunal in May 1999 on allegations of murder and ethnic cleansing of ethnic Albanian civilians in Kosovo.

 

            On June 27, 2001, the International Court of Justice (the World Court) issued its judgment on the merits of the LaGrand Case (Germany v. United States).  Walter LaGrand and his brother, German nationals living in the United States, were arrested in Arizona in 1982 on suspicion of armed robbery and murder.  They were not informed of their rights under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, a multilateral treaty to which both Germany and the United States are parties.  Article 36, paragraph (1)(b) of the Convention provides: