Offers a new framework for analysing international law and presents a theory of international legal change.

Non-state actors have always been treated with ambivalence in the works of international law. While their empirical existence is widely acknowledged and their impact and influence uncontested, non-state actors are still not in the centre of international legal research. The idea that non-state actors are not law-makers, however, stands in sharp contrast with the growing notion of non-state actors as law-takers. This book examines the position of non-state actors in international law as law-makers and law-takers and questions whether these different positions can or should be separated from each other. Each contribution reveals both the political and normative aspects of the question as well as the positivistic possibilities and constraints to accommodate non-state actors as law-takers and law-makers in the contemporary international legal system. Altogether, each expert reveals that the position of non-state actors in international law is not a fixed one but changes with the functional and theoretical perspectives of the observer. Non-State Actor Dynamics in International Law is a welcomed addition to an under researched field of legal study. An indispensable read to scholars and policy makers wishing to gain new insights into general discourse on non-state actors in international law and the process of norm formation in the international realm.

This book examines theoretical and practical issues concerning the relationship between international law, time and history. Problems relating to time and history are ever-present in the work of international lawyers, whether understood in terms of the role of historic practice in the doctrine of sources, the application of the principle of inter-temporal law in dispute settlement, or in gaining a coherent insight into the role that was played by international law in past events. But very little has been written about the various different ways in which international lawyers approach or understand the past, and it is with a view to exploring the dynamics of that engagement that this book has been compiled. In its broadest sense, it is possible to identify at least three different ways in which the relationship between international law and (its) history may be conceived. The first is that of a "history of international law" written in narrative form, and mapped out in terms of a teleology of origins, development, progress or renewal. The second is that of "history in international law" and of the role history plays in arguments about law itself (for example in the construction of customary international law). The third way of understanding that relationship is in terms of "international law in history": of understanding how international law has been engaged in the creation of a history that in some senses stands outside the history of international law itself. The essays in this collection make clear that each type of engagement with history and international law interweaves various different types of historical narrative, pointing to the typically multi-layered nature of internationallawyers' engagement with the past and its importance in shaping the present and future of international law.

Critically explores how international law is mobilised, by global and local actors, to achieve or block global justice efforts.

This book challenges the idea that international law looks the same from anywhere in the world. Instead, how international lawyers understand and approach their field is often deeply influenced by the national contexts in which they lived, studied, and worked. International law in the United States and in the United Kingdom looks different compared to international law in China and Russia, though some approaches (particularly Western, Anglo-American ones) are more influential outside their borders than others. Given shifts in geopolitical power and the rise of non-Western powers like China, it is increasingly important for international lawyers to understand how others coming from diverse backgrounds approach the field. By examining the international law academies and textbooks of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, Roberts provides a window into these different communities of international lawyers, and she uncovers some of the similarities and differences in how they understand and approach international law.

This volume explores the various strategies, mechanisms and processes that influence rule of law dynamics across borders and the national/international divide, illuminating the diverse paths of influence. It shows to what extent, and how, rule of law dynamics have changed in recent years, especially at the transnational and international levels of government. To explore these interactive dynamics, the volume adopts an interdisciplinary approach, bringing together the normative perspective of law with the analytical perspective of social sciences. The volume contributes to several fields, including studies of rule of law, law and development, and good governance; democratization; globalization studies; neo-institutionalism and judicial studies; international law, transnational governance and the emerging literature on judicial reforms in authoritarian regimes; and comparative law (Islamic, African, Asian, Latin American legal systems).

The essays selected and reproduced in this volume explore how international refugee law is dynamic and constantly evolving. From an instrument designed to protect mostly those civilians fleeing the worse excesses of World War II, the 1951 Refugee Convention has developed into a set of principles, customary rules, and values that are now firmly embedded in the human rights framework, and are applicable to a far broader range of refugees. In addition, international refugee law has been affected by international humanitarian law and international criminal law (and vice versa). Thus, there is a reinforcing dynamic in the development of these complementary areas of law. At the same time, in recent decades states have shown a renewed interest in managing migration, thereby raising issues of how to reconcile such interests with refugee protection principles. In addition, the emergence of concepts of participation and responsibility to protect promise to have an impact on international refugee law.

Legal Sources in Business and Human Rights engages with some evolving trends that are currently affecting the international and EU law sources in the field of Business and Human Rights. Three main dynamics are detected and explored: the emergence of international legal obligations that are also binding on corporations (Part I); the growing participation of corporations in traditional international standard-setting and law-making processes and, in parallel, the emergence of atypical and heterogeneous law-making processes (Part II); the formal or substantive hardening of originally soft normative standards, through a multi-layered and multi-player law-making process (Part III). Interestingly, these trends concur to mitigate States’ reluctance to accept binding rules in this field, and to strengthen the effectiveness of soft international regulation.