This book offers a South Asian perspective on international law, maintaining a suitable distance from the ‘Western’ approach. The themes discussed reflect the region’s particular contribution to the development of international law. Each South Asian country has its own important role to play in promoting regional trade, regulating maritime affairs, ensuring access to water, debating State responsibility, engaging with International Criminal Court, questioning diplomatic and consular immunities, and, most importantly, upholding human rights. These issues are addressed by local contributors from Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, who have come together to represent the whole South Asian region on a single academic platform.

International law is fragmented and complex, and at the same time increasingly capable of shaping reality in areas as diverse as human rights, trade and investment, and environmental law. The increased influences of international law and its growing institutionalization and judicialization invites reconsideration of the question how should the authority to make and interpret international law be allocated among states, international organizations and tribunals, or in other words, "who should decide what" in a system that formally lacks a central authority? This is not only a juridical question, but one that lies at the very heart of the political legitimacy of international law as a system of governance, defining the relationship between those who create the law and those who are governed by it in a globalizing world. In this book, leading international legal scholars address a broad range of theoretical and practical aspects of the question of allocation of authority in international law and debate the feasibility of three alternative paradigms for international organization: Sovereignty, Supremacy and Subsidiarity. The various contributions transcend technical solutions to what is in essence a problem of international constitutional dimensions. They deal, inter alia, with the structure of the international legal system and the tenacity of sovereignty as one of its foundations, assess the role of supremacy in inter-judicial relations, and draw lessons from the experience of the European Union in applying the principle of subsidiarity. This volume will be of great interest to scholars and practitioners of international law alike.

This book will consider a rapidly emerging guiding general principle in international relations and, arguably, in international law: the Responsibility to Protect. This principle is a solution proposed to a key preoccupation in both international relations and international law scholarship: how the international community is to respond to mass atrocities within sovereign States. There are three facets to this responsibility; the responsibility to prevent; the responsibility to react, and the responsibility to rebuild. This doctrine will be analysed in light of the parallel development of customary and treaty international legal obligations imposing responsibilities on sovereign states to the international community in key international law fields such as international human rights law, international criminal law and international environmental law. These new developments demand academic study and this book fills this lacuna by rigorously considering all of these developments as part of a trend towards assumption of international responsibility. This must include the responsibility on the part of all states to respond to threats of genocide, crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansings and large-scale war crimes. The discussion surrounding aggravated state responsibility is also explored, with the author concluding that this emerging norm within international law is closely related to the responsibility to protect in its imposition of an international responsibility to act in response to an international wrong. This book will be of great interest to scholars on international law, the law of armed conflict, security studies and IR in general.

This book explores the impacts of global economic, political and cultural shifts on various international legal frameworks and legal norms. The economic growth of states throughout Asia, South and Central America and Africa is having a profound effect on the dynamics of international relations, with a resulting impact on the operation and development of international law. This book examines the influence of emerging economies on international legal rules, institutions and processes. It describes recent and predicted changes in economic, political and cultural powers, flowing from the growth of emerging economies such as China, India, Brazil, South Africa and Russia, and analyses the influence of these changes on various legal frameworks and norms. Expert contributors drawn from a variety of fields, including international law, politics, environmental law, human rights, economics and finance, provide a broad analysis of the nature of the shifting global dynamic in its historical and contemporary contexts, and a range of perspectives on the impact of these changes as they relate to specific regimes and issues, including climate change regulation, collective security, indigenous rights, the rights of women and girls, environmental protection and foreign aid and development. The book provides a fresh and comprehensive analysis of an issue with extensive implications for international law and politics. Shifting Global Powers and International Law will be of interest to students and scholars of international relations; international law; international political economy, human rights; and development.

Provides an accessible, balanced, and nuanced introduction to public international law, with examples of how the law applies in practice.

The proliferation of international courts and the extension of international regulation to new areas have been considered to be threatening for the unity of Public International Law as a legal system. These developments are the consequence of the increasing formation of legal subsystems (material international regimes) which continue to grow in complexity. How these trends affect the unity of the international legal system requires theoretical scrutiny of its fundamental bases. This work considers that the unity of the international legal system depends upon its normative structure, and on the social medium in which it is applied: the evolving international community. A unified international legal system has as its ultimate goal the protection of human dignity through the international regulation of human rights. The question of the unifying stability of the international legal system and the development of legal subsystems within it encourages a review of the major issues of current Public International Law, considering the evolution from traditional doctrines to recent approaches. This review is done from an analytical frame that provides a deeper understanding of the current situation of Public International Law as a legal system.

This work is primarily aimed at the law student, although it may also be of relevance to those studying international relations. It covers the main topics of public international law and is designed to serve both as a textbook and as a case and materials book.

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.