The present volume is the fourth in a series, The Judges, which collects and synthesizes the opinions of leading international judges of the contemporary era who have contributed significantly to the progressive development of international law. The series was launched with the Judicial Opinions of Shigeru Oda, former Judge and Vice President of the International Court of Justice. This collection of Opinions covers the period from the year 1993 until his retirement in 2003. All of the individual Opinions filed by Judge Oda in this period - Separate Opinions, Declarations and Dissenting...

The errors - military, political, and not least diplomatic - in the continuing unfolding of the Yugoslav tragedy over the decade since the Fall of the Berlin Wall and the final ending of the Cold War, offer certain lessons. It had been confidently predicted that the complex, multi-national Yugoslav state created by the World War I victors at Versailles in 1919, and continued by the post-World War II peace settlements, would not long survive Marshal Tito's death. As it happened, when the moment of truth arrived the concert of Western European powers had no clear and coherent plans ready for a...

The record of the International Court of Justice and its predecessor, the old Permanent Court of International Justice, extends back now for about three quarters of a century. During that time the Court has been transformed from a Western (Eurocentric) tribunal in terms both of its judges and also the disputes it was called on to resolve, to an institution broadly representative of the layered, pluralistic world community of today. This is reflected in the fiercely contested battles for election to the Court or the regular triennial elections, and also in the angry denunciations of the Court...