ABSTRACT
For many whose professional work is international public law and policy, the most significant legal events of the entire 1990s were the signing of the Landmines Treaty (the Ottawa Convention)1 and the signing of the International Criminal Court (the ICC) statute (the Rome Statute).2 Even recognizing other key legal events during the decade, such as the establishment of the ad hoc Yugoslavia and Rwanda war crimes tribunals. for many the Ottawa Convention and the Rome Statute especially epitomized fundamental changes in the nature of the international legal system - changes that in a hundred years, perhaps, would be seen as the critical beginnings of a new international system.
