It is with great sadness that this issue of the Review opens with an in memoriam for and tributes to one of the great advocates of the law of armed conflict: Frédéric de Mülinen. This issue is devoted to Frédéric, who was also an Honorary President of the International Society of Military Law and the Law of War.

The articles in this issue deal with the relationship between selfdefence and rules of engagement (which is more complicated than is often thought) and the debate between British military and government lawyers on the legal status of defeated Nazi Germany. The latter contribution has been included both for its intrinsic value (the International Society for Military Law and the Law of War has traditionally also devoted attention to the history of the law of war) and for the interesting comparison which it offers with the claim that we were/are dealing with a new situation after ‘9/11’.

The section on case-law and recent developments once again deals with detention, in particular the UK House of Lords’ Al-Jedda decision on detention by UK forces in Iraq and a judgment of the European Court of Human Rights on detention in a military maritime counter-drug operation (Medvedyev). Clearly, the applicability of human rights to military operations, especially as regards detention, still requires further clarification. This section also covers a German Constitutional Court decision on the role of the German Parliament in relation to the deployment of the armed forces.

To reflect the close link between this Review and the International Society for Military Law and the Law of War, this issue contains the programme and some texts of the Society’s 7th Seminar for Legal Advisors to the Armed Forces on ‘Legal Advisors in Post-Conflict Operations’, held in Windhoek, Namibia, in March 2008.