This volume provides a widely acessible overview of legal scholarship at the dawn of the 21st century. Through 43 essays by leading legal scholars based in the USA, the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and Germany, it provides a varied and stimulating set of road maps to guide readers through the increasingly large and conceptually sophisticated body of legal scholarship. Focusing mainly, though not exclusively, on scholarship in the English language and taking an international and comparative approach, the contributors offer original and interpretative accounts of the nature, themes, and preoccupations of research and writing about law. They then go on to consider likely trends in scholarship in the next decade or so.

State responsibility in international law is considered one of the cornerstones of the field. For a long time it remained the exclusive responsibility system due to the primacy of States as subjects of international law. Its unique position has nonetheless been challenged by several developments both within and outside the international legal order, such as the rise of alternative responsibility ideas and practices, as well as globalization and its consequences. This book adopts a critical and holistic approach to the law of State responsibility and analyzes the functionality of the general rules of State responsibility in a changed international landscape characterized by the fragmentation of responsibility. It is argued that State responsibility is not equally relevant across the broad spectrum of international obligations, and that alternative constructions of responsibility, namely international criminal law and international liability, have increased in standing.

This volume of essays addresses some of the most significant issues of contemporary international law. It particularly focuses on questions relating to international humanitarian law, the law of the sea, human rights, the use of force, international environmental law, and the settlement of international disputes. Recent developments in some other issues of international law such as State immunity and State responsibility are also dealt with. The Work contains a number of articles in French and is offered as a tribute to the prominent Iranian Professor of International Law, Djamchid Momtaz, on the occasion of his 75th birthday.

This book provides a comprehensive analysis of the content, scope, and function of due diligence across various areas of international law. Looking at current tendancies towards proceduralisation and more proactive risk management, it reveals the promises and limits of due diligence as a concept for enhancing accountability and compliance.

This work, the outgrowth of a joint reflection by French and German international lawyers, attempts to reconceptualize the doctrine of hierarchy in international law by emphasizing that a clear distinction should be drawn between primary rules, which encapsulate precepts for the protection of the basic values of the international community, and secondary rules, which determine the regime of legal consequences flowing from a breach of such rules of conduct.

China’s rise has aroused apprehension that it will revise the current rules of international order to pursue and reflect its power, and that, in its exercise of State sovereignty, it is unlikely to comply with international law. This book explores the extent to which China’s exercise of State sovereignty since the Opium War has shaped and contributed to the legitimacy and development of international law and the direction in which international legal order in its current form may proceed. It examines how international law within a normative–institutional framework has moderated China’s exercise of State sovereignty and helps mediate differences between China’s and other States’ approaches to State sovereignty, such that State sovereignty, and international law, may be better understood.

This book offers a new approach to the study of EU law of external relations.

The dislocations of the worldwide economic crisis, the necessity of a system of global justice to address crimes against humanity, and the notorious 'democratic deficit' of international institutions highlight the need for an innovative and truly global legal system, one that permits humanity to re-order itself according to acknowledged global needs and evolving consciousness. A new global law will constitute, by itself, a genuine legal order and will not be limited to a handful of moral principles that attempt to guide the conduct of the world's peoples. If the law of nations served the hegemonic interests of Ancient Rome, and international law served those of the European nation-state, then a new global law will contribute to the common good of all humanity and, ideally, to the development of durable world peace. This volume offers a historical-juridical foundation for the development of this new global law.

Kate Parlett's study of the individual in the international legal system examines the way in which individuals have come to have a certain status in international law, from the first treaties conferring rights and capacities on individuals through to the present day. The analysis cuts across fields including human rights law, international investment law, international claims processes, humanitarian law and international criminal law in order to draw conclusions about structural change in the international legal system. By engaging with much new literature on non-state actors in international law, she seeks to dispel myths about state-centrism and the direction in which the international legal system continues to evolve.

The international legal system has weathered sweeping changes over the last decade as new participants have emerged. International law-making and law-enforcement processes have become increasingly multi-layered with unprecedented numbers of non-State actors, including individuals, insurgents, multinational corporations and even terrorist groups, being involved. This growth in the importance of non-State actors at the law-making and law-enforcement levels has generated a lot of new scholarly studies on the topic. However, while it remains uncontested that non-State actors are now playing an important role on the international plane, albeit in very different ways, international legal scholarship has remained riddled by controversy regarding the status of these new actors in international law. This collection features contributions by renowned scholars, each of whom focuses on a particular theory or tradition of international law, a region, an institutional regime or a particular subject-matter, and considers how that perspective impacts on our understanding of the role and status of non-State actors. The book takes a critical approach as it seeks to gauge the extent to which each conception and understanding of international law is instrumental in the perception of non-State actors. In doing so the volume provides a wide panorama of all the contemporary legal issues arising in connection with the growing role of non-state actors in international-law making and international law-enforcement processes.