and a NATO-led force assumed responsibility for peace-keeping in that
country in December 1995. Two developments of great significance for
NATO took place in March 1999. Firstly, full membership was accorded to
the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland, three former member countries of
the Warsaw Pact, despite Russian opposition. Secondly, a NATO force carried
out air-raids on Yugoslavia in response to the conflict in Kosovo.
At the beginning of the 21st century the debate over the future of NATO
had become complex, particularly as theEuropean Unionwas eager to field
its own military force which would necessarily draw on the same units that its
member states dedicated to NATO. It was likely that theOrganization for
Security and Co-operation in Europewould also have a role in the
development of a multinational mutual-security arrangement for the whole
of Europe.
Natural Justice
By natural justice is meant the ideas that there are some qualities and values
inherent in the very concept oflaw, as opposed to arbitrary decision-making,
and that individuals should be able to claim certain basic protections in the legal
system regardless of whether they are specifically given those protections by
statute. The two most common tenets of natural justice in the British legal
system areaudi alteram partem(that each party has a right to be heard in any
dispute) andnemo judex in parte sua(that the judge of a case should have no
personal interest in its outcome). In the United Kingdom in the 1960s these
quite specific principles of natural justice were applied to a large number of
administrative as well as judicial decision-making situations, and as a result the
British judiciary both expanded its own jurisdiction and developed something
which it had previously lacked—a coherent corpus ofadministrative law
This was further enhanced at the end of the 20th century by the passing of the
Human Rights Act 1998. (See administrative courts andjudicial
review).
Natural Law
Natural law has been a crucial idea in political, social and legal theory from
early medieval times throughout Europe and, later, North America. Nearly all
the most famous political theorists have had something to say on the matter,
starting at the latest withAquinas, probably influenced by the rediscovery of
analysis ofAristotle, and arguably as early asAugustine. By no means all
those who have used or discussed the concept have seen natural law in even
remotely the same way. The contrast betweenHobbes’view of natural law
andLocke’s, though they wrote in the same country and only a few years
Natural Law