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The law of the sea is an up-to-date and comprehensive treatment of this branch of public international law. It begins by tracing the historical origins of the law of the sea and explaining its sources, notably the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. This is followed by chapters examining the various maritime zones into which the sea is legally divided, namely internal waters, the territorial sea, archipelagic waters, the contiguous zone, the continental shelf, the exclusive economic zone, the high seas and the International Seabed Area. In each case the legal nature of the zone and its physical dimensions are analysed. Separate chapters deal with the baselines from which the breadths of most maritime zones are delineated and the law governing the delimitation of boundaries between overlapping maritime zones. Later chapters discuss how international law regulates the safety of navigation, fisheries and scientific research, and provides for protection of the marine environment from pollution and biodiversity loss. The penultimate chapter addresses the question of landlocked States and the sea. The final chapter outlines the various ways in which maritime disputes may be settled. Throughout the book detailed reference is made not only to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, but also to other relevant instruments, the burgeoning case law of international courts and tribunals, and the academic literature.

International organisations are a central component of modern international society. This book provides a concise account of the principles and norms of international law applicable to the intergovernmental organisation (IGO). It defines and explains inter-governmentalism and the role of law in its regulation. The book presents case studies that show how the law works within an institutional order dominated by politics. After a note on the key relationship between the IGO and its member states, it examines the basic relationship between the UN and states in terms of membership through admissions, withdrawal, expulsion, suspension, and representation. The debate about the extent of the doctrine of legal powers is addressed through case studies. Institutional lawmaking in the modern era is discussed with particular focus on at the impact of General Assembly Resolutions on outer space and the Health Regulations of the World Health Organization. Non-forcible measures adopted by the UN and similar IGOs in terms of their legality (constitutionality and conformity to international law), legitimacy and effectiveness, is covered next. The different military responses undertaken by IGOs, ranging from observation and peacekeeping, to peace enforcement and war-fighting, are discussed in terms of legality and practice. The book also considers the idea of a Responsibility to Protect and the development of secondary rules of international law to cover the wrongful acts and omissions of IGOs. It ends with a note on how the primary and secondary rules of international law are upheld in different forms and mechanisms of accountability, including courts.

This book quantifies international organizations’ affiliation with particular values in their constitutions, like cooperation, peace and equality. The statistical and legal analyses tease out from the data the actual values contained in international organizations’ constitutions and their relationship with one another. Values like cooperation, representation and communication often appear together in international organizations’ constitutions. However, divide these organizations into groups – like regional versus universal organizations – and a kaleidoscope of different patterns in these values emerges. In the kaleidoscope, the reader clearly can see distinct groupings of organizations and values. With data pointing the way, many new – and seemingly contradictory – interpretations of international organizations law emerge. Not only does this book provide a map of international organizations’ values, it provides a healthy start towards fully understanding that map, thereby helping global governance take a quantum leap forward.

This book provides a critical exposition of the international law concerning child soldiers. It starts by looking at the situation of child soldiers in the world today, examining why children are recruited into armed forces and groups; why they volunteer for military service; and, once recruited, what treatment they receive. The book explores how perceptions of childhood and children's rights have changed, and how this has affected the ways in which child soldiers have been treated. It describes the activities of the United Nations with regard to the child soldier phenomenon. The book examines the legal regulation of the recruitment and use of children in hostilities. It shows that although international law comprehensively regulates the recruitment and use of child soldiers, owing to the plethora of treaties on the subject, states' obligations continue to differ and children can still lawfully be recruited and used to participate in armed conflict. The book discusses how, once recruited into armed forces and groups, international law treats child soldiers. It considers the status of child soldiers as combatants and as persons in the power of an adverse party in both international and internal armed conflicts, and states' obligations with regard the disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration of child soldiers. An unusual feature of how child soldiers are viewed is that they are often seen as both victims of human rights abuses and as human rights violators. Finally, the book examines the extent to which the recruitment and use of child soldiers is an international crime.

This book is the collective use of force within the framework of the Charter, whose ambitious project is based on the premise that armed force can be resorted to exclusively in the common interest. It begins with a short discussion of the powers granted to the Security Council for the discharge of its primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security, and the conditions under which these powers may be exercised. The United States, supported by its NATO allies, or at least some of them, openly challenged the authority of the Security Council and attempted to downgrade its authorisation from a legal requirement to a matter of political convenience. The book deals with the use of force by States either individually or jointly. Through the lenses of the interaction between the Charter and customary international law, it considers the evolution of the right to self-defence, the only exception expressly provided for in the Charter, and the possible re-emergence of other exceptions. The book focuses in particular on the controversial question concerning the legality of the threat or use of nuclear weapons in self-defence and of the pre-emptive military action against threats posed by these weapons. Often referring to the recent Iraqi crisis, it further deals with the collective and unilateral means at the disposal of the United Nations and its members to enforce disarmament obligations and tackle the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

This book provides a basic guide to the new World Trade Organization (WTO) code of conduct, and then focuses on the problems and issues arising in relation to its implementation. It considers the institutional aspects of the WTO along with an explanation of the substantive provisions of the WTO code. The establishment of the WTO places the international trading system on a firm constitutional footing. The Marrakesh Agreement establishing the WTO sets out the purposes and objectives of the WTO and its institutional framework. The primary purposes of the WTO are twofold: to ensure the reduction of tariffs and other barriers to trade, and the elimination of discriminatory treatment in international trade relations. The book presents an examination of the GATT 1994, and the various agreements arising from the Uruguay Round Of Multilateral Trade Negotiations. It consists of a general examination of the various techniques employed in order to ensure the implementation of the WTO code. The book presents the theory of the techniques of implementation and explores the various elements of the implementation techniques employed in the WTO code, other than the Trade Policy Review and Dispute Settlement Mechanisms. It focuses on dispute settlement which is an important technique of implementation and comprises an examination of the Trade Policy Review Mechanism. The book focuses on preconditions in the framework of implementation and on the issues and problems of implementation in so far as they relate to developing countries and trade 'blocs'.

This book presents the case of humanitarian intervention within a discursive theory of international law. It identifies and examines the philosophical and legal concepts which inform the case of humanitarian intervention and scrutinises the pertinent practice. The book explores how legal rules which vie to control humanitarian intervention are moulded by theory and how they inform the relevant practice in cases such as Kosovo, Rwanda or Somalia. It presents the legal and theoretical narrative and its agonising attempts to produce objective, true arguments, to introduce a modicum of morality when faced with hard cases but also to concede a leeway for moral or political relativists. For instance, humanitarian intervention within natural law appeals to modes of justification springing from theistic assumptions such as the moral standing of humans as God's mirror or Kantian ones as partakers of universal reason. The cases of Uganda and Kampuchea should be evaluated in the same way, not according to their effects on the governmental structures but according to how they secured human dignity. Kampuchea was not totally propitious in this regard. Humanitarian intervention stopped widespread massacres at a genocidal level and in this way secured human dignity, but the ensuing situation did not correspond to the standards of human dignity. Following the position developed, cases such as Entebbe and Liberia are included within the concept of humanitarian intervention. Operation 'Restore Hope' for Somalia is marked by the disagreements between the United Nations and the participant states concerning its purposes and means.

This book examines the historical evolution of international humanitarian law, in particular the legal and political bases for the penalisation of infractions associated with this body of law. The interaction of law, politics and financial considerations have proved detrimental for staging criminal prosecutions, even to this day, but ultimately have not negated the criminal liability of perpetrators. The book explores the various forms of direct participation in humanitarian law offences and the concept of the doctrine of superior responsibility. It stipulates the liability of those persons who, being in a position of authority, fail to prevent or punish crimes committed by their subordinates. The book deals with the elaboration of a legal theoretical model, defined as the 'duty to control', which attempts to address the gap identified in the relevant law of causation. It traces the evolution of humanitarian law in the context of non-international armed conflicts, with the aim of determining the application of humanitarian and criminal norms therein. Although for the purposes of humanitarian law the distinction between non-international and international conflicts is becoming less significant, people must still be aware of the mechanism known as 'conflict classification'. The world's major powers, with the exception of the UK, have expressly or implicitly widened their judicial jurisdiction by penalising extraterritorial breaches committed in internal armed conflicts. The book focuses on the legislative and judicial efforts of developed nations, mainly from Europe and North America. For these countries, the suppression of extraterritorial crime is not of imminent importance.

The book explores the relationship between violence against women on one hand, and the rights to health and reproductive health on the other. It argues that violation of the right to health is a consequence of violence, and that (state) health policies might be a cause of – or create the conditions for – violence against women. It significantly contributes to feminist and international human rights legal scholarship by conceptualising a new ground-breaking idea, violence against women’s health (VAWH), using the Hippocratic paradigm as the backbone of the analysis. The two dimensions of violence at the core of the book – the horizontal, ‘interpersonal’ dimension and the vertical ‘state policies’ dimension – are investigated through around 70 decisions of domestic, regional and international judicial or quasi-judicial bodies (the anamnesis). The concept of VAWH, drawn from the anamnesis, enriches the traditional concept of violence against women with a human rights-based approach to autonomy and a reflection on the pervasiveness of patterns of discrimination (diagnosis). VAWH as theorised in the book allows the reconceptualisation of states’ obligations in an innovative way, by identifying for both dimensions obligations of result, due diligence obligations, and obligations to progressively take steps (treatment). The book eventually asks whether it is not international law itself that is the ultimate cause of VAWH (prognosis).

This book provides an expanded and up-to-date account of the European Convention on Human Rights and the evolution of its system of human rights protection. It explains the scope of the rights and freedoms which are guaranteed, then reviews the institutional arrangements, first as they functioned until November 1998, and now under Protocol No. 11. To put the Strasbourg system in perspective, the book begins with a short historical overview of the Convention and its progressive elaboration and describes the new European Court of Human Rights. It also mentions other arrangements which now exist for promoting and protecting human rights in Europe. The Council of Europe was set up as a peaceful association of democratic States which proclaimed their faith in the rule of law and 'their devotion to the spiritual and moral values which are the common heritage of their peoples'. The 'Congress of Europe', convened by the International Committee of Movements for European Unity, was held at The Hague in May 1948. Articles 14-18 of the Convention relate to the scope and exercise of the rights guaranteed. They are therefore not intended to secure additional rights, but rather to ensure the effective exercise of the rights set out in the earlier provisions, or in certain situations to permit their limitation. Article 14 establishes the principle of non-discriminatory application, Article 15 allows for the exercise of emergency powers, and Article 17 is intended to prevent abuse of the Convention's freedoms.