Events: The Force of International Law presents an analysis of international law, centred upon those historical and recent events in which international law has exerted, or acquired, its force. From Spanish colonization and the Peace of Westphalia, through the release of Nelson Mandela and the Rwandan genocide, and to recent international trade negotiations and the 'torture memos', each chapter in this book focuses on a specific international legal event. Short and accessible to the non-specialist reader, these chapters consider what forces are put into play when international law is invoked, as it is so frequently today, by lawyers, laypeople, or leaders. At the same time, they also reflect on what is entailed in naming these ‘events’ of international law and how international law grapples with their disruptive potential. Engaging economic, military, cultural, political, philosophical and technical fields, Events: The Force of International Law will be of interest to international lawyers and scholars of international relations, legal history, diplomatic history, war and/or peace studies, and legal theory. It is also intended to be read and appreciated by anyone familiar with appeals to international law from the general media, and curious about the limits and possibilities occasioned, or the forces mobilised, by that appeal.

This book is a study of the future of international law as well as the future of the United Nations. It is the first study ever bringing together the laws, policies and practices of the UN for the protection of the earth, the oceans, outer space, human rights, victims of armed conflicts and of humanitarian emergencies, the poor, the vulnerable and the disadvantaged world-wide. It reviews unprecedented dangers and challenges facing humanity such as climate change and weapons of mass destruction, and argues that the international law of the future must become an international law of security and of protection. It submits that the concept of international security in the UN Charter can no longer be restricted to situations of armed conflict but must be given its natural meaning: whatever threatens the security of humanity. It calls for the Security Council to perform its role as the guardian of the security of humankind and sees a leadership role for the UN Secretary-General in analysing and presenting challenges of international security and protection to the Security Council for its attention. Written by a seasoned scholar / practitioner of international law and the United Nations, who has served in key policy, peacemaking, peacekeeping and human rights positions in the United Nations, this book offers indispensable new vistas of international law and policy, and the future role of the United Nations.

"This book explores recent contributions of the case-law of international courts and tribunals to the development of international law. It begins by looking at how such case-law has contributed to the development of the methodology of international law and to the development of procedural rules. It further examines recent contributions from three major players in the international judicial arena: the International Court of Justice, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea and the mechanisms for Investor-State Dispute Settlement"--

Customary international law is the most important source of international criminal law. Fifty years after the Nuremberg trials, many convictions imposed by the tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda are still based on customary international law alone. The International Criminal Court, by contrast, has not yet had much opportunity to give more guidance on this matter. Hence, it is worthwhile to provide an overview of the current status of custom by analysing the ad hoc tribunal’s case law on this point. Including a comprehensive synopsis of current literature and a contrast of the ad hoc tribunal’s case law with the jurisprudence of the International Court of Justice, this book offers an inclusive insight into the source’s past and future.

This volume examines the contributions to International Law of individual members of the Advisory Committee of Jurists in the League of Nations, and the broader national and discursive legal traditions of which they were representative. It adopts a biographical approach that complements existing legal narratives. Pre-1914 visions of a liberal international order influenced the post-1919 world based on the rule of law in civilised nations. This volume focuses on leading legal personalities of this era. It discusses the scholarly work of the ACJ wise men, their biographical notes, and narrates their contribution as legal scholars and founding fathers of the sources of international law that culminated in their drafting of the statute of the Permanent Court of International Justice, the forerunner of the International Court of Justice. The book examines visions of world law in a liberal international order through social theory and constructivism, historical examination of key developments that influenced their career and their scholarly writings and international law as a science. The book will be a valuable reference for those working in the areas of International Law, Legal History, Political History and International Relations.

For the Liber Amicorum, dedicated to Professor Budislav Vukas, his colleagues and former students have contributed essays on topical issues of contemporary international law, primarily in the fields that were the focus of Professor Vukas’s interest during his long-lasting academic and international career at the University of Zagreb, Faculty of Law, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, the International Labour Organization, the Institut de Droit International and many other law schools and international institutions and organizations. The essays in this collection, thus, deal with current developments concerning the subjects of international law (i.a. jurisdictional immunities of states, responsibility of states, international organizations, other non-state entities), the law of the sea (i.a. jurisdictional zones, delimitation, piracy, underwater cultural heritage protection, fisheries, land-locked states), human rights law, including minorities’ protection (i.a. European Court of Human Rights, humanitarian assistance, protection in the event of disasters, social and labour rights, rights of the child), and dispute settlement (i.a. International Court of Justice, International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, arbitration, diplomatic means). Of the 49 essays written by scholars and practitioners from different parts of the world six are in French.

The book explores the various means of making non-conventional/non-treaty law and the cross-cutting issues that they raise. Law-making by technical/informal expert bodies, Conferences of Parties, international organizations, the UN Security Council, regional organizations and arrangements and non-state actors is examined in turn. This forms the basis for the analysis of the complementarity of international treaty law, customary international law and non-traditional law-making, potential subject matters of non-treaty law-making, domestic consequences of non-treaty law-making, proliferation of actors, commissions and treaty bodies of the UN system, and International courts and tribunals.

Invited contributions from well-established scholars and emerging stars in law and politics provide instructors and students with a compact, essential reader of timely essays on the key issues facing international law today.

"Generally perceived as a means to organize relations between nations, international law could also become a critical lens in understanding the nature and function of the world order. A number of researchers have worked in this area, unearthing its paradoxes and discursive terrains through a range of issues like globalization, environment, human rights, and investment laws. With contributions by established as well as promising scholars across the globe, this work explores the numerous issues that currently confront international law. The essays deliberate on both theories of international law and issues of interpretation. Three main streams representing critical international law have been identified. While Postrealism discusses international law and international politics, Postcolonialism grapples with the understanding of international vis-à-vis decolonized countries informed by sociology, philosophy, and history. Transnationalism displaces states as the primary makers of international law to include non-state actors in global governance. Discernment is an essential element in legal studies; in this light the present volume raises more questions than it answers, but attempts to evaluate problems from multiple perspectives"--Unedited summary from book jacket.