This volume of the Netherlands Yearbook of International Law (NYIL) is the fiftieth in the Series, which means that the NYIL has now been with us for half a century. The editors decided not to let this moment go by unnoticed, but to devote this year’s edition to an analysis of the phenomenon of yearbooks in international law. Once the decision was made that this would be the subject of this year’s NYIL, the editors asked themselves a number of questions. For instance: Not many academic disciplines have yearbooks, so what is the reason we do? What is the added value of having a yearbook alongside the abundance of international law journals, regular monographs and edited volumes that are published on a yearly basis? Does the existence of yearbooks tell us something about who we are, or who we think we are, or what we have to contribute to the world? These questions will be addressed both in a general and in a specific sense, whereby a number of yearbooks published all over the world will be looked at in further detail. The Netherlands Yearbook of International Law was first published in 1970. It offers a forum for the publication of scholarly articles in a varying thematic area of public international law.

This volume of the Netherlands Yearbook of International Law explores the many faces of populism, and the different manifestations of the relationship between populism and international law. Rather than taking the so-called populist backlash against globalisation, international law and governance at face value, this volume aims to dig deeper and wonders ‘What backlash are we talking about, really?’. While populism is contextual and contingent on the society in which it arises and its relationship with international law and institutions thus has differed likewise, this volume assists in our examination of what we find so dangerous about populism and problematic in its relationship with international law. The Netherlands Yearbook of International Law was first published in 1970. It offers a forum for the publication of scholarly articles in a varying thematic area of public international law./div

International law holds a paradoxical position with territory. Most rules of international law are traditionally based on the notion of State territory, and territoriality still significantly shapes our contemporary legal system. At the same time, new developments have challenged territory as the main organising principle in international relations. Three trends in particular have affected the role of territoriality in international law: the move towards functional regimes, the rise of cosmopolitan projects claiming to transgress state boundaries, and the development of technologies resulting in the need to address intangible, non-territorial, phenomena. Yet, notwithstanding some profound changes, it remains impossible to think of international law without a territorial locus. If international law is undergoing changes, this implies a reconfiguration of territory, but not a move beyond it. The Netherlands Yearbook of International Law was first published in 1970. It offers a forum for the publication of scholarly articles of a conceptual nature in a varying thematic area of public international law.

This book engages with international legal responses to the global environmental crisis. Humanity faces a triple planetary crisis, consisting of the interlinked problems of climate change, depletion of biological diversity and pollution.The chapters in this volume of the Netherlands Yearbook of International Law address important questions of how and to what extent these environmental concerns have been integrated into international law, who or what drives these developments, and what all of this tells us about international law’s ability to tackle the challenges that a deteriorating environment brings for the future of life on Earth. The strength of the volume is that it brings together a wide range of perspectives on the ‘greening’ phenomenon in international law. It includes perspectives from international environmental law, human rights law, investment law, financial law, humanitarian law and criminal law. Moreover, it raises important questions regarding the validity of the predominant approach in international law to (the protection of) nature. By providing such a wide range of perspectives on international legal responses (or lack thereof) to the environmental crisis, the volume seeks to engage scholars and practitioners from a variety of disciplines. It invites readers to compare the state-of-the-art across disciplines and to reflect on ways to strengthen international law’s responses to the environmental crisis. Furthermore, as has become standard for the Netherlands Yearbook of International Law, the second part consists of a section on Dutch practice in international law. The Netherlands Yearbook of International Law was first published in 1970. It offers a forum for the publication of scholarly articles in a varying thematic area of public international law. Chapter 3 is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

This volume of the Netherlands Yearbook of International Law (NYIL) addresses the question how the assumption that states have a common obligation to achieve a collective public good can be reconciled with the fact that the 195 states of today’s world are highly diverse and increasingly unequal in terms of size, population, politics, economy, culture, climate and historical development. The idea of common but differentiated responsibilities is on paper the perfect bridge between the factual inequality and formal equality of states. The acknowledgement that states can have common but still different – more or less onerous – obligations is predicated on the moral and legal concept of global solidarity. This book encompasses general contributions on the function and the content of the related principles, chapters that describe and evaluate how the principles work in a specific area of international law and chapters that address their efficiency and broader ramifications, in terms of compliance, free-rider behaviour and shifting balances of power. The originality of the book resides in the integration of conceptual, comparative and practical dimensions of the principles of global solidarity and common but differentiated responsibilities. The book is therefore highly recommended reading for both academics with a theoretical interest and those working within international organisations. The Netherlands Yearbook of International Law was first published in 1970. It offers a forum for the publication of scholarly articles in a varying thematic area of public international law.

EtYIL 2019 comes out while the world is in the midst of a new coronavirus pandemic that has infected millions and killed thousands of people without distinction as to age, race, colour, or creed. As an attack on all humanity, Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, has challenged the fitness of the global order as never before, and its institutional and normative frameworks have been found wanting. As is often the case in such circumstances, when the WHO is denied resources to assist those countries or the WTO is unable to guarantee access to Covid-19 medical supplies and protective equipment, it is the poorest nations that suffer the most. EtYIL’s mission is to provide a platform for purpose-oriented scholarly analysis and debate on issues of particular significance for African countries such as Covid-19, disputes over Nile water resources, and Ethiopia-Eritrea relations. Although the pandemic came too late for this issue of EtYIL, we have managed to include two important articles that examine the subject from geostrategic and legal perspectives. EtYIL 2019 also addresses a number of other topical issues, including the responsibility of the UN Security Council (UNSC) in climate-related risks to least developed countries, the Global South’s approach to environmental protection, the challenges of international regulation of arms brokering, and the contributions of Martin Luther King, Jr. to Pan-Africanism and international human rights law. Finally, the Yearbook also continues its coverage of regional issues such as the evolving Ethiopia-Eritrea relations, Djibouti’s accession to the ICSID Convention; the trilateral negotiations between Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam and the U.S. meddling and the role of the UNSC on the issue have also been covered. As before, our contributors come from all over the world, to all of whom we extend our sincere appreciations.

The Yearbook of International Disaster Law aims to represent a hub for critical debate in this emerging area of research and policy and to foster the interest of academics, practitioners, stakeholders and policy-makers on legal and institutional issues relevant to all forms of natural, technological and human-made hazards.

In the first dedicated monograph on article 16 of the 1951 Refugee Convention, Emma Dunlop positions the article within the broader context of public international law, presenting a comprehensive account of asylum seekers' and refugees' right of access to courts.

This book provides a comprehensive and detailed analysis of the nature, content and scope of the rules regulating the use of force in international law as they are contained in the United Nations Charter, customary international law and international jurisprudence. It examines these rules as they apply to developing and challenging circumstances such as the emergence of non-State actors, security risks, new technologies and moral considerations.

This second volume of the AIIB Yearbook of International Law examines the role of international organizations in promoting effective dispute resolution. It is divided into five parts to reflect a series of overarching themes and relationships. Firstly, international arbitration’s effectiveness and affinity with multilateral institutions. Second, international organizations as proponents of the norms of dispute resolution. Third, the dispute resolution mandates of international organizations. Fourth, the role of dispute resolution and economic development. Together, this diversity of perspectives offers convincing evidence that effective dispute resolution is a precondition to successful economic development—and that international organizations have an essential role to play in promoting both. The fifth part presents the 2018 AIIB Law Lecture given by Georg Nolte, Chair of the International Law Commission, on the subject of ‘International Organizations in the Recent Work of the International Law Commission’ and the 2018 AIIB Legal Conference Report.