This Oxford Handbook ambitiously seeks to lay the groundwork for the relatively new field of comparative foreign relations law. Comparative foreign relations law compares and contrasts how nations, and also supranational entities (for example, the European Union), structure their decisions about matters such as entering into and exiting from international agreements, engaging with international institutions, and using military force, as well as how they incorporate treaties and customary international law into their domestic legal systems. The legal materials that make up a nation's foreign relations law can include constitutional law, statutory law, administrative law, and judicial precedent, among other areas. This book consists of 46 chapters, written by leading authors from around the world. Some of the chapters are empirically focused, others are theoretical, and still others contain in-depth case studies. In addition to being an invaluable resource for scholars working in this area, the book should be of interest to a wide range of lawyers, judges, and law students. Foreign relations law issues are addressed regularly by lawyers working in foreign ministries, and globalization has meant that domestic judges, too, are increasingly confronted by them. In addition, private lawyers who work on matters that extend beyond their home countries often are required to navigate issues of foreign relations law. An increasing number of law school courses in comparative foreign relations law are also now being developed, making this volume an important resource for students as well. Comparative foreign relations law is a newly emerging field of study and teaching, and this volume is likely to become a key reference work as the field continues to develop.

The Oxford ILDC online database, an online collection of domestic court decisions which apply international law, has been providing scholars with insights for many years. This ILDC Casebook is the perfect companion, introducing key court decisions with brief introductory and connecting texts. An ideal text for practitioners, judged, government officials, as well as for students on international law courses, the ILDC Casebook explains the theories and doctrines underlying the use by domestic courts of international law, and illustrates the key importance of domestic courts in the development of international law.

International law is increasingly referred to and utilised in English courts,in fields as diverse as criminal proceedings, children's rights, tort law, and asylum cases. Despite this use, there is currently no book on the market (whether a practitioner text or otherwise) which addresses this subject-matter in detail. Hence the need for this book - by a practitioner and for practitioners, regardless of their specialist area of practice - on how international law is and can be used in the domestic courts. The book presents in a distilled format the relevant principles of law, and their application in this area and provides a guide to relevant international instruments and the way(s) in which these instruments have been referred to or used in English courts. While the emphasis is on stating the law as it is, the author also identifies the principles which are likely to guide practitioners in an otherwise unstructured area, supported by specific examples which will provide a subject guide to relevant instruments and sources and how they can be used.

This book explores the way domestic courts contribute to the maintenance of theinternational of law by providing judicial control over the exercises of public powers that may conflict with international law. The main focus of the book will be on judicial control of exercise of public powers by states. Key cases that will be reviewed in this book, and that will provide empirical material for the main propositions, include Hamdan, in which the US Supreme Court reviewed detention by the United States of suspected terrorists against the 1949 Geneva Conventions; Adalah, in which the Supreme Court of Israel held that the use of local residents by Israeli soldiers in arresting a wanted terrorist is unlawful under international law, and the Narmada case, in which the Indian Supreme Court reviewed the legality of displacement of people in connection with the building of a dam in the river Narmada under the ILO Indigenous and Tribal Populations Convention 1957 (nr 107). This book explores what it is that international law requires, expects, or aspires that domestic courts do. Against this backdrop it maps patterns of domestic practice in the actual or possible application of international law and determines what such patterns mean for the protection of the international rule of law.

General Principles and the Coherence of International Lawprovides a collection of intellectually stimulating contributions from leading international lawyers to the discourse on the role of general principles in international law. Offering a comprehensive analysis of the doctrines, practices, and debates on general principles of law, the volume assesses their role in safeguarding the coherence of the international legal system. This important book addresses the relationship between principles of law and the other sources of international law, explores the interplay between principles of law and domestic and regional legal systems and the role of principles of law with regard to three specific regimes of international law: investment law, human rights law and environmental law.

The Interpretation of International Law by Domestic Courts assesses the growing role of domestic courts in the interpretation of international law. It asks whether and if so to what extent domestic courts make use of the international rules of interpretation set forth in the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. Given the expectation that rules of international law are to have a uniform interpretation and application throughout the world, the practice of domestic courts is considerably more diverse. The contributions to this book analyse three key questions: first, whether international law requires a coherent interpretive approach by domestic courts. Second, whether a common or convergent methodological outlook can be found in domestic court practice. Third, whether a common interpretive approach is desirable from a normative perspective. The book identfies a considerable tension between international law's ambition for universal and uniform application and a plurality of different approaches. This tension between unity and diversity is analysed by a group of leading international lawyers from a wide range of geographical, disciplinary and methodological approaches. Drawing on domestic practice of number of jurisdictions including, among others, Colombia, France, Japan, India, Israel, Mexico, South Africa, the United Kingdom and the United States, the book puts the interpretative practice of domestic courts in a wider context. Its chapters offer doctrinal, practical as well as theoretical perspectives on a central question for international law.

International Law is both an introduction to the subject and a critical consideration of its central themes and debates. The opening chapters of the book explain how international law underpins the international political and economic system by establishing the basic principle of the independence of States, and their right to choose their own political, economic, and cultural systems. Subsequent chapters then focus on considerations that limit national freedom of choice (e.g. human rights, the interconnected global economy, the environment). Through the organizing concepts of territory, sovereignty, and jurisdiction the book shows how international law seeks to achieve an established set of principles according to which the power to make and enforce policies is distributed among States.

Presently, many of the greatest debates and controversies in international criminal law concern modes of liability for international crimes. The state of the law is unclear, to the detriment of accountability for major crimes and of the uniformity of international criminal law. The present book aims at clarifying the state of the law and provides a thorough analysis of the jurisprudence of international courts and tribunals, as well as of the debates and the questions these debates have left open. Renowned international criminal law scholars analyze, in discrete chapters, the modes of liability one by one; for each mode they identify the main trends in the jurisprudence and the main points of controversy. An introduction addresses the cross-cutting issues, and a conclusion anticipates possible evolutions that we may see in the future. The research on which this book is based was undertaken with the Geneva Academy.

What is the relationship between politics and international law? Inspired by comparative politics and socio-legal studies, this Research Handbook develops a novel framework for comparative analysis of politics and international law at different stages of governance and in different governance systems. It applies the framework in a wide range of fields—from human rights and environmental standards, to cyber conflict and intellectual property—to show how the relationship between politics and international law varies depending on the sites where it unfolds.

Domestic Violence and International Law argues that certain forms of domestic violence are a violation of international human rights law. The argument is based on the international law principle that, where a state fails to protect a vulnerable group of people from harm, whether perpetrated by the state or private actors, it has breached its obligations to protect against human rights violation. This book provides a comprehensive legal analysis for why a state should be accountable in international law for allowing women to suffer extreme forms of domestic violence and how this can help individual victims. It is irrelevant that the violence is perpetrated by individuals and not state actors such as soldiers or the police. The state's breach of its responsibility is in its failure to act effectively in domestic violence cases; and in its silent endorsement of the violence, it becomes complicit. The book seeks to reformulate academic and political debate on domestic violence and the responsibility of states under international law. It is based on empirical data combined with an honest assessment of whether or not domestic violence is recognised by the international community as a human rights violation. 'Domestic Violence in International Law [...] provides an original, provocative, and much needed legal framework for the coherent development of a norm against domestic violence in international human rights law...Dr. Meyersfeld has developed a thoroughgoing analysis that asks and answers the most difficult questions often neglected by academics, lawyers and activists who dismiss the possibility that systemic violence against women could violate international law...Most fundamentally, this book is memorable for the hope and optimism it expresses about the transformative possibilities of international law. For without compromising such intensely human values as privacy, autonomy and cultural identity, Dr. Meyersfeld moves her reader with an abiding conviction: that international law, fueled with the power of transnational actors, can propel public actors to protect abused and vulnerable people in their most private worlds.' From the Foreword by Harold Koh, The Legal Adviser, United States Department of State (2009-).