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Anuario de Derecho Internacional (XIX) 2003

  

The recently published yearbook of the University of Navarra in Pamplona, is giving a light into the way of thinking of Spanish international lawyers. The special doctrinal chapter of this yearbook of international law is devoted to the highly acute problem of the legality of the armed attack of the United States of America. The four articles (written by Mauricio Arcari, Romualdo Bermejo Garcia, Cesareo Gutierrez Espada) provide us a thoroughful analysis of the different resolutions adopted by the Security Council prior to the unilaterally decided American action (the most important resolutions being in extenso reproduced in  the documentary part of the volume.), and of the perception of the legal and political debate it generated in Spanish political life. We can see the dilemma of the United Nations how to incorporate American initiatives into the well known procedures of New York and how to act in favor of the Iraqi population in shortage, when the fait accompli is presented to the world order. We caan also see the challenge made by the series of recent UN actions which were not easy to accomodate with the written rules of San Francisco. Is the metamorphosis of the practice of the United Nations (and the tacit acceptance of being left out) the precursor of a new perception of world order, reality and the interests of mankind or does it mean frankly  illegality? Poor international law and poor law! - as Bermejo Garcia puts it. In the framework of the chapters of „other studies” and „notes”, different aspects of  the collaboration with the International Criminal Court are examined by Juan Francisco Escudero Espinosa, Pilar Pozo Serrano, Amparo Alcoceba Gallego. The practice of the Sierra Leone special tribunal  - founded on the precarious economic basis of voluntary contributions of states - is shown by Antonio Blanc Altemir who considers it as a means of serving the interest of putting an end to the impunity for massive violations of human rights. The articles about ICJ –judgments, namely the commentary of the Avena case (Mexico v. US) with special regard on interim measures (by Elena Lopez-Almansa Beaus) and the human rights related jurisprudence of the World Court (by Natalia Ochoa Ruiz) or notes about jurisprudential developments of European and Inter-American Human Rights Courts (dicta about dissolution of political parties, forced disappearances  - by Eugenia  Lopez-Jacoiste Diaz  and Gabriella Citroni ) as well as minority protection (Consuelo Ramon Chornet) are all worth reading.