Topic 1

On the basis of an arrest warrant issued by a judge in Spain, British authorities are holding General Augusto Pinochet, the former head of state of Chile, on Spanish charges of crimes against humanity, including genocide and terrorism, that are alleged to have occurred during Pinochet's rule in Chile. It is anticipated that a request to extradite him to Spain will be forthcoming. 

 

On August 20, American cruise missiles struck targets in Afghanistan and Sudan. The target in Afghanistan was identified as an extensive terrorism training complex. U.S. officials said that the United States had convincing evidence that the organization of Osama Bin Laden was responsible for the bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania on August 7, and that a meeting of members of an international terrorist network he supported was imminent at the Afghan site when the missile attack occurred.

 

At the end of the six-week Rome Diplomatic Conference for an International Criminal Court, on July 17, 1998, 120 countries (including virtually all of the United States' allies) voted in favor of the Treaty containing the Statute for an International Criminal Court. The United States joined China, Libya, Iraq, Israel, Qatar, and Yemen as the only seven countries voting in opposition to the Treaty. Twenty-one countries abstained.

 

The United States is substantially in arrears in its payment of amounts the United Nations General Assembly has assessed against it for the UN regular budget and for UN peacekeeping. The question arises whether there are any legal consequences for a failure to pay such assessments.

 

The UN Charter contains a single sanction for failure to pay assessed dues. Article 19 provides:

Introduction 

India's five underground nuclear explosions detonated on May 11-13, 1998, raise such international law questions as these: Is India prohibited by any applicable treaty or customary rule of international law from testing or possessing nuclear weapons? Is there any other source of international law that might prohibit India's testing or possessing nuclear weapons? If India may test and possess them, under what circumstances would it be lawful to use them? Do India's tests provide any other states, such as Pakistan, with legal justification to conduct their own nuclear tests?