Professor Hermann Mosler, former Director of the Max Planck Institute
for Comparative Public Law and International Law, former Judge and Vice-
President of the European Court of Human Rights, Judge of the Interna-
tional Court of Justice from 1976 to 1985, celebrated his 80th birthday
at the end of the year 1992. On 22nd January 1993, the Max Planck
Institute organized a colloquium in honour of Hermann Mosler, on a topic
which is of theoretical as weIl as practical interest: Interim Measures
Indicated by International Courts. The participants of the colloquium
were outstanding scholars and experts in the area of international
dispute settlement. The present publication is based on the colloquium
of January 1993. It contains four reports, namelyon the International
Court of Justice (Thirl- way), the Court of Justice of the European
Communities (Jacobs), the Inter-American Court of Human Rights
(Buergenthal) and the European Court of Human Rights (Bernhardt). Three
of the reports were orally pre- sented and discussed, and they have been
revised and expanded for this publication; the report by Thomas
Buergenthal could only be submitted in writing. In preparing the
colloquium the authors were requested to concentrate their contributions
on the following questions: 1. Legal bases for the indication of interim
measures (convention, statute, rules of court). 2. Conditions for the
indication of interim measures (jurisdiction, compe- tence,
admissibility, urgency, necessity - irreparable damage -; request of the
parties andjor indication by the court proprio molu).