Topic 1

Introduction

 

The United Nations and Sierra Leone are about to establish a hybrid international-domestic Court to prosecute those allegedly responsible for atrocities in the Sierra Leone civil war. This will be the third ad hoc international criminal court to be created by the United Nations over the last decade, following the establishment of the war crimes tribunals for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in 1993 and Rwanda (ICTR) in 1994.

 

Background

 

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)

 

According to news reports, Robert Mugabe, the head of state of Zimbabwe, was served with process while he was in New York City for the United Nations Millennium Summit, in a suit brought by Zimbabwean nationals seeking civil damages under the U.S. Alien Tort Claims Act (ATCA). The suit alleges that Mugabe orchestrated violence by his political party against its opponents, including beating and burning the plaintiffs or, in one case, the husband of a plaintiff, in order to stay in power at the time of Zimbabwe's parliamentary elections in June.

 

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.