Netherlands Yearbook of International Law 

About: Netherlands Yearbook of International Law is an academic journal published by Cambridge University Press. The journal publishes majorly in the area(s): International law & Public international law. It has an ISSN identifier of 0167-6768. Over the lifetime, 348 publications have been published receiving 3099 citations.

Self-contained regimes*

Abstract: On 29 November 1979 the United States of America instituted proceedings before the International Court of Justice against the Islamic Republic of Iran in respect of the seizure and holding as hostages of members of the US diplomatic and consular staff and certain other US nationals. Although the Government of Iran chose not to appear before the Hague Court it defined its position in two communications addressed to the Court on 9 December 1979 and 17 March 1980. In these letters the Iranian Government took the view that the Court could not and should not take cognizance of the case since the question of the hostages“only represents a marginal and secondary aspect of an overall problem, one such that it cannot be studied separately and which involves, inter alia, more than 25 years of continual interference by the United States in the internal affairs of Iran, the shameless exploitation of our country, and numerous crimes perpetrated against the Iranian people, contrary to and in conflict with all international and humanitarian norms.”

The Legal Nature of the Rights Granted by the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights*

Abstract: What is the legal nature of the rights granted by the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR)? This question seems simple enough, and every lawyer interested in the international protection of human rights is likely to have come to ponder it at one time or another. Before the Second World War, the international protection of economic and social rights was mainly the concern of the ILO, with its own very specific techniques and procedures. Apart from that, the question of social rights had gained the attention only of some academics. After the War, economic and social rights were included in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Articles 22–29), though that is not a binding instrument. There is also, of course, the European Social Charter, concluded in 1961, and in force since 26 February 1965, which is a regional treaty. Since the entry into force of the ICESCR on 3 January 1976, however, there is now a binding and global instrument dealing with the protection of what are generally called “social rights” (in contradisctinction to “civil and political rights”).

Legal and Non-Legal Norms – a meaningful distinction in international relations?

Abstract: In his final speech at the Helsinki Conference (CSCE) in 1975, Prime Minister Wilson called the Final Act of the Conference a “moral commitment”, not an international treaty. Thus, the Act is not binding as a matter of international law, though it is quite clear from the historical context, and from the wording of the Final Act itself, that the participating states have some sort of obligation (“commitment”) to base their future conduct on the provisions of the Final Act. The Act formulates norms, rules intended to determine state behaviour, but these rules are not of a legal character. This is, apparently, the assumption underlying the Wilson statement, to which many similar statements could be added. As will be shown, a considerable body of state practice based on the same concept has developed, and points to the existence of non-legal (pre-legal, para-legal, moral, political) obligations as distinguished from legal ones. Is it a valid distinction, can a distinction really be made between legal and non-legal norms? If so, what constitutes the difference? What is the basis of obligation in both cases?

Legal and some political limitations on the power of the UN Security Council to exercise its enforcement powers under Chapter VII of the Charter

Abstract: Since the outbreak of the Second Gulf Crisis the question of the role of the United Nations Security Council in the maintenance of peace and security within the context of the institutionalized collective security system provided for in the UN Charter, and the closely related question of the principal legal and political limitations on the exercise of its authority under Chapter VII of the Charter, have been at the forefront of attention.

Entitlement to Maritime Areas of Rocks Which Cannot Sustain Human Habitation or Economic Life of Their Own

Abstract: Article 121 of the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (LOS Convention) retains the traditional definition of an island as: ‘a naturally formed area of land, surrounded by water, which is above water at high-tide’ (paragraph 1), and attributes to it the same maritime spaces as the mainland. These spaces are at present: the 12 mile territorial sea (TS), the 24 mile contiguous zone (CZ), the continental shelf (CS) and the 200 mile exclusive economic (or fishery) zone (EEZ) (paragraph 2). However, unlike the 1958 Geneva Convention on the Territorial Sea which gives the same legal status to all natural islands, paragraph 3 of Article 121 limits the legal entitlement of islands to maritime spaces by providing that:‘Rocks which cannot sustain human habitation or economic life of their own shall have no exclusive economic zone or continental shelf’.