Only two Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries have ratified the International Criminal Court (ICC) Statute, and this number is unlikely to change dramatically in the near future. This research thus considers how international criminal justice (ICrimJ) can be advanced through the regionalisation of international criminal law (ICL), whilst also serving the interests of ASEAN Member States. The theoretical appeal, practical viability, and political acceptability of regional ICrimJ mechanisms are accordingly examined. Given that the establishment of the ICC has challenged the absolute sovereignty of States over the prosecution of international crimes, regional initiatives have added political allure as they not only better reflect local legal norms and political considerations, but also place the selection of ‘regional crimes’ and enforcement measures primarily in the hands of regional countries. In recognition of the 'ASEAN way' of making decisions, regional initiatives to further ICrimJ in Southeast Asia should be implemented gradually and driven internally through consultation and consensus. Moreover, to achieve the overarching ASEAN goal of maintaining regional peace and security, the modalities and practical effects of ICrimJ may require greater emphasis on deterrence and reconciliation, instead of punishment. The prospect and efficacy of a regional ICrimJ mechanism however also depends, inter alia, on the availability of institutional infrastructure and resources, and will understandably differ between regions. Nevertheless, some general conclusions about the value and attractiveness of a regional approach to ICrimJ can be drawn. Despite variations on what may constitute justice in different geographic areas, these generalisations are useful because they reveal the incentives and favourable conditions for efforts at the regional level. The research therefore proffers a basic framework to assess the costs and benefits of regional solutions against domestic or international methods of enforcing ICL, and determine which may best serve ICrimJ in each unique situation and circumstance.

This thesis seeks to determine the most effective jurisdiction for criminal accountability for UN peacekeeping personnel who engage in sexual exploitation and abuse of women, and other conduct amounting to violence against women. As criminalisation is sought as the appropriate method of prevention and punishment of such conduct, it is first examined why criminalisation is necessary. The impact of sexual exploitation and abuse (SEA) on women in the territories in which peace operations are located is detailed as harms in the form of violations of the rights of these women. Alternatives to criminal sanctions are then considered, in particular the actions of the UN towards prevention and prohibition of SEA. While such regulations are necessary, they are ultimately inadequate in preventing and punishing SEA. Included is an assessment of the Draft Convention on Criminal Accountability of UN Officials and Experts on Mission, the adoption of which would support criminalisation. However, the UN itself is unable to exercise criminal jurisdiction, and thus it is essential to examine which jurisdictions would be most effective in undertaking criminal prosecution of peacekeeping personnel. The choice between national jurisdictions and international criminal justice is debated. Which jurisdiction offers a more effectual forum for ensuring accountability? What potential impediments exist and how can such hindrances can be overcome? This thesis argues that gender-based crimes by UN peacekeepers should be criminalised, and that, while the International Criminal Court should not be discounted as a potential forum for prosecuting perpetrators, domestic prosecutions are far more likely and far more effective.

In 1982 the USA and other major industrial states refused to sign the Convention on the Law of the Sea--the result of the Conference on the Law of the Sea--because of objections to its provisions on the seabed beyond state jurisdiction--the International Seabed Area. According to them the system set up by the Convention is favorable to the third world and inimical to the material and ideological interests of these industrial states. Concurrently, however, the US and its allies argue that the remaining provisions of the Convention are generally accepted and part of International Law. These provisions include, among other, transit passage through straits, the 12nm Territorial Sea, the 200nm Exclusive Economic Zone and the Continental Shelf. In opposition to the Convention's seabed system the US has promoted efforts at a Reciprocating States' Agreement which, thus far, has resulted in a Provisional Understanding among eight western states. In this work I argue that the limits of state jurisdiction are not conclusively set and that both the Exclusive Economic Zone and the Continental Shelf are subject to political and legal challenges. Moreover, these challenges will grow stronger because of competition, primarily among the major industrial states, over the resources and the military and waste disposal uses of the seabed and because of the inconsistencies of major maritime states in their defense of narrow zones of coastal jurisdiction. With respect to the argument of the US and some of its allies that the deep seabed provisions of the Convention are beneficial to the third world and inimical to the major industrial states I suggest that this is not the case. In fact, the major industrial states are the primary beneficiaries of the Convention's seabed resource system, as they are the beneficiaries of the systems regulating the military and waste disposal uses of the High Seas and the international seabed. The core characteristic of the resource system, however, is the protection it offers to the less endowed among these industrial states and to the major industrializing states. Inasmuch as the Provisional Understanding does not protect these states--most of which are in a position to challenge a variety of the Convention's remaining provisions--the Reciprocating States' Agreement strategy is conflictual and destabilizing.

This thesis addresses the legitimacy discourse of the ad-hoc International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, by focusing on a particular case study: the Interlocutory Motion challenging the jurisdiction of the Tribunal in the Dusko Tadi6 case. This, the first ever International Criminal Tribunal established by the United Nations Security Council, faced in the initial proceedings with the first indictee to be present in the Chambers a challenge as to the lawfulness of its own establishment, and therefore as to its legitimacy. The lack of historical precedents for this novel jurisdiction, and the context of the more multicultural-driven international relations of the 1990s, that is, because of the collapse of the superpowers and the temporary suspension of the logic of a bipolar world, were all expected to validate a complex discourse of legitimacy, namely, through recourse to extra-legal references. In fact, the acceptance, and therefore the legitimacy, of the new jurisdiction depended on the recognition of a shared historical, cultural and political context, or, at least, of recognizable politicocultural references beyond the legalistic self-contained judicial speech. After extensively reviewing the initial materials of the challenge presented before the court, the thesis focuses its research on the Tribunal's Decisions, both at Trial and Appeal levels, identifying the attempts to break a self-referential legal discourse. The uncertainty of the historical moment, together with the hesitation on the use of politico-cultural references on the part of the Tribunal, sustains the conclusion of this thesis that no coherent legitimacy discourse is here attained.

The United Nations was established in the belief that working together states could curb the use of force and the damage to states and individuals associated with it. Upon its creation the United Nations Security Council became the global policeman enforcing the rules of the Charter aided by the weapons contained in Chapter V11. One of those weapons was the recourse to economic sanctions. In theory, if the economic lifeblood of a state is cut off it will be forced to modify its behaviour without the need for military intervention. As such, economic sanctions are an attractive resource for an institution seeking to avoid recourse to the use of force. In practice, however, economic sanctions have proven to be a complex tool, which have caused significant damage to those targeted by them. They have caused significant humanitarian difficulties, have been widely breached and have, in some instances, only served as a prelude to the use of force. Literature in this field to date has concentrated on single sanctions regimes or particular aspects of sanctions. It has, therefore, failed to get to the heart of the issue, which is: what has caused these problems, are they being appropriately addressed and how should they be resolved going forward. This thesis focuses on these issues. By tracing the development of economic sanctions from the establishment of the United Nations to date it offers a unique perspective on how they have evolved. It uses case studies and illustrative examples supported by a wide range of legal, political, historical and economic material to show the context in which economic sanctions are taken. It also critically analyses the difficulties that have arisen with sanctions regimes and the attempts that have been made to resolve them. Aligned to the consideration of economic sanctions is a reflection on the extent to which the power of the United Nations Security Council has developed during this time period. It suggests that the United Nations use of economic sanctions, in light of recent judicial decisions, is under threat and offers a solution in the form of a proposal for two new institutions, which would support the United Nations in its use of economic sanctions.

This thesis is about identifying valid self-defence claims in the UN collective security system. The thesis suggests a fresh theoretical approach to balancing the imperative for adaptation of the right of self-defence with the danger that too broad a right could be exploited by states wishing to justify national policy. The starting point for the thesis is the twin realist criticisms that the right of self- defence is either too narrowly drawn and therefore not fit for the purpose of protecting states‘ interests, or too broadly drawn and therefore hostage to the subjective interpretation of states using force. These problems were intensified during the Administration of former President G.W. Bush in the USA. In this work, these two criticisms are dubbed 'esotericism' and 'exploitation' respectively. The problem of self-defence, as an exception to the general prohibition on the use of force, is often phrased in terms of a choice between the is of state practice and the ought of abstract norms. In this thesis, it is suggested that no such choice needs to be made. In order to identify a valid self-defence claim, the is of evaluative state practice is harnessed and constrained by a process of argumentation grounded in mutual understanding of the facts of a given case. Two strands of social theory are used to accomplish this. One of them questions whether states have to be conceived as rationally self-interested actors and suggests that the key to the identification of valid self-defence claims is for states to take responsibility for their claims and evaluations of the right. The other strand of theory expands on Habermas‘ idea of the criticizable validity claim. The report that self-defence has been used should act as a starting point for argumentation and not the last word in national process of decision.

At the end of the Cold War some scholars argued that democracy is the only legitimate political system and that this needs to be acknowledged even by international law. This thesis rejects such arguments and takes the position that attributes of statehood are not dependent on type of government. As far as existing states are concerned, democracy is not an ongoing requirement for statehood. The end of the Cold War also coincided with the dissolutions of two multiethnic federations, the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia. The dissolution of Czechoslovakia followed shortly afterwards and subsequently Eritrea, East Timor and Montenegro also became independent states. Most recently, independence was declared by Kosovo. Some of these post-Cold War state creations were subject to significant international involvement, which might have had effects of (informal) collective state creations. This thesis argues that in such circumstances international efforts to create a new state were associated with attempts to implement a democratic political system. On the other hand, where the emergence of a new state was merely a fact (and the international community was not involved in producing this fact), recognition was normally universally granted without an enquiry into the (non-) democratic methods of governments of the newly-emerged states. Apart from democracy as a political system, this thesis is also concerned with the operation of democratic principles in the process of state creation, most notably through the exercise of the right of self-determination. An argument is made that the will of the people within the right of self-determination has a narrower scope than is the case within democratic political theory. Further, while the operation of the right of self-determination requires consent of the people before the legal status of a territory may be altered, a democratic expression of the will of a people will not necessarily create a state. Limits on the will of the people in the context of the right of selfdetermination stem from the principle of territorial integrity of states, protection of rights of other peoples and minorities, and even from the previously existing internal boundary arrangement. In the context of the latter it is concluded that the uti possidetis principle probably does not apply outside of the process of decolonisation. However, this does not mean that existing internal boundaries are not capable of limiting the democratically-expressed will of the people, especially where boundaries of strong historical pedigree are in question.

In 1937, the international community preliminarily agreed on a definition of international terrorism. A major World War and Cold War since that time have made impossible any such modern consensus. In particular, the U.N. principles of the equal rights and self-determination of "Peoples" have caused political and juridical confusion in that liberation fighters who utilize terror methods as one tactic in an overall political strategy to achieve self-determination are frequently termed "terrorists", and prosecuted as such. In order to regulate wars of self-determination under international law, and to control the means and methods of warfare utilized in them, international humanitarian law (IHL) was extended in 1977 to include armed conflicts for the right to self-determination, "as enshrined in ... the Declaration on Principles of International Law concerning Friendly Relations and Co-operation among States in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations". Thus, acts of terrorism perpetrated during armed struggles for self-determination are separable from random acts of international violence, and when perpetrated by states or insurgent forces during wars of self-determination, may be prosecuted under IHL as war crimes. However, although states are obligated to seek out and prosecute the perpetrators of illicit acts of warfare, they rarely do so. Nevertheless, should IHL be fully utilized during wars of self-determination, if only for purposes of guidance, the separability of illicit acts of war would enable the international community to reach consensus more easily regarding a definition of terrorism in general, and a co-ordination of efforts to deter its occurrence.

The aim of this study has been to explore the political and legal significance of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, both within the territory of the former Yugoslavia and beyond. Within these parameters, the overall purpose of the study has been to examine, firstly, whether the ICTY has contributed to the restoration of peace and security in the territory of the former Yugoslavia, and secondly, whether, using the experience of the ICTY, it is reasonable to expect that the newly established International Criminal Court (ICC) will make a similar contribution to international peace and security and the rule of law in international relations more generally. Therefore, the academic aim of the thesis is to use the results of the empirical research on the ICTY as a basis for reasoned speculation about the ICC. In seeking to answer whether the ICTY has contributed to peace and security in the former Yugoslavia, the thesis analyses the cooperation of the actors within and outside the former Yugoslavia, both state and non-state, arguing that the ICTY has not achieved its main objective. Using the lessons of the ICTY, the thesis seeks to modify expectations about the potential of the ICC to contribute to the maintenance of international peace and security by helping to manage similar conflicts in the future. In answering whether the ICTY has contributed to the rule of law in international relations, the thesis has contextualised the ICTY within the history of similar attempts to use international law and international institutions to prohibit and/or regulate the use of force in international relations. The overall conclusion is that the ICTY has not achieved this goal either.

LL.M. (Law) / The position with regard to a number of fairly small result of the proximity of these islands to the coast of South West Africa and the fact that the latter is also entitled to lay claim to maritime zones, the potential for overlapping claims to such zones clearly exists. Consequently a solution is proposed to delimit these zones equitably. It amounts in short to awarding an enclave jurisdictional zone of 12 nautical miles to each of these islands, delimited in accordance with the equidistant principle. It is conceded, however, that in the final instance, the eventual delimitation of all these maritime zones depends on agrertent between the two parties concerned. islands off the coast of South West Africa/Nar'ibia, generally known as the Penguin Islands, their status as well as the maritime zones they may generate, are examined in this study. With the emphasis on the 1958 Geneva Conventions and the 1982 Law of the Sea Convention the endeavours to codify the rules of the Law of the Sea are set out as the backdrop against which the rules applicable to the position of these islands are to be discovered. The various definitions of islands in these codifications are identified and the elements of the definition in the 1982 Convention as well as some of the elements proposed by a number of delegations to the United Nations Law of the Sea Conference, are examined in detail. An investigation into the applicable conventional provisions and state practice, prove that in principle islands, just like mainland areas, are capable of generating territorial waters, a contiguous zone, an economic or fishing zone as w all as a continental shelf. In terms of the 1982 Convention so-called rocks do not qualify to generate areas of jurisdiction to the same extent as islands. The effect of islands on the delimitation of maritime zones between adjacent and opposite states is examined with a view to finding principles which could by analogy be applied to the delimitation of the maritime zones generated by the Penguin Islands and the mainland of South West Africa. In the case of territorial waters, it is initially left to the parties concerned to come to an agreement. Failing such agreement the equidistant principle applies unless a historic title or special circuitstances requires an alternative solution. In a number of instances the solution eventually arrived at amounted to awarding enclave maritime zones to islands and delimiting such zones against that of the opposite state by way of the equidistant principle. In the case of the delimitation of the continental shelf state practice revealed that, depending on their relative geographical location in relation to their own and opposite states, islands are accorded full or limited weight in delimiting the continental shelf between the mainland states concerned. Corresponding principles are applied in the delimitation of economic or fishery zones. South Africa's claims to territorial sovereignty over the Penguin Islands have been repeatedly questioned but the records show that these claims can he indisputably substantiated. Compliance with the definition of an island is of the utmost importance in ascertaining whether an insular formation is entitled to generate any specific maritime zone and, therefore, a description of each of these islands is provided. As a result of the proximity of these islands to the coast of South West Africa and the fact that the latter is also entitled to lay claim to aritime zones, the potential for overlapping claims to such zones clearly exists. Consequently a solution is proposed to delimit these zones equitably. It amounts in hort to awarding an enclave jurisdictional zone of 12 nautical miles to each of these islands, delimited in accordance with the equidistant principle. It is conceded, however, that in the final instance, the eventual delimitation of all these maritime zones depends on agrertent between the two parties concerned.