Search results
The Basics of International Law presents a comprehensive and accessible entry-level text which provides the most essential and basic rules and facts of international law in pocket format. This quick reference text offers UK-specific examples to contextualise international law concepts and directs the reader to further sources. Topics covered include: the place of international law in the national legal order; subjects of international law; sources of public international law; treaty law; jurisdiction; immunities; state responsibility; settlement of disputes; the enforcement of international law; peace and security; the law of international organisations; the United Nations; other global international organisations; regional intergovernmental organisations; international human rights; international criminal law; international economic law; and, international environmental law.
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.
Cinema has been an object of study for the social sciences for some time now. The relationship between law and cinema has been the subject of a certain number of reflections by jurists who work essentially within a national legal framework, and from the true genre that courtroom movies have become. One can point also to studies linking cinema and international relations. In short, the relationship between international law and cinema has never been the subject of a specific book. The objective of the present book is to show what image of international law and its norms is conveyed in films and series. Beyond a strictly legal analysis, the ambition is to take into account, in a broader perspective marked by interdisciplinarity, the relations between international law, cinema and ideology. The volume is aimed at a readership made of scholars, researchers as well as practitioners, in the field of international law, and related fields, all of whom will benefit from being introduced to a variety of perspectives on core international legal questions present in movies and TV series. Further, the volume can also be used with advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students studying international law, politics and international relations because it will provide the possibility of introducing students to a variety of perspectives on key issues in international law present in movies and TV series.
liable; international legal relations can be established. The ability to perform international legal acts, such as concluding treaties, is an indication of having international legal personality. Those with international legal personality are referred to as subjects of international law. Subjects of international
Representing the first book-length treatment of the application of feminist theories of international law, The boundaries of international law argues that the absence of women in the development of international law has produced a narrow and inadequate jurisprudence that has legitimated the unequal position of women worldwide rather than confronted it.
With a new introduction that reflects on the profound changes in international law since the book’s first publication in 2000, this volume is essential reading for scholars, practitioners and students alike.
While espionage among nations is a long-standing practice, the emergence of the internet has challenged the traditional legal framework and has resulted in the intensification of intelligence activities. In fact, espionage was subject to indirect regulation, which applied where a spy was (often at their own risk) trespassing on foreign territory or sent behind enemy lines. With the emergence of cyber-espionage, however, agents may collect intelligence from within their own jurisdictions, with a great deal of secrecy and less risk. This monograph argues that – save for some exceptions – this activity has been subject to normative avoidance. It means that it is neither prohibited – as spying does not result in an internationally wrongful act – nor authorised, permitted or subject to a right – as States are free to prevent and fight foreign cyber-espionage activities. However, States are aware of such status of law, and are not interested in any further regulation. This situation did not emerge by happenstance but rather via the purposeful silence of States – leaving them free to pursue cyber-espionage themselves at the same time as they adopt measures to prevent falling victim to it. To proceed, this monograph resorts to a first-class sample of State practice and analyses several rules and treaties: territorial sovereignty, collective security and international humanitarian law (i.e. the rules applicable between belligerent and neutral Powers, as well as between belligerents themselves), the law of diplomatic relations, human rights law, international law and European economic law. It also demonstrates that no specific customary law has emerged in the field.
-ordination has been achieved, it has rested firmly on classical international law understandings of sovereignty and jurisdiction, and the activities of states in the tax field appear to reaffirm rather than upset in any way these notions. In this chapter, an outline will be given of the traditional bases of state jurisdiction and of the limitations on tax jurisdiction stemming from principles of customary
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.
21 The sources of international law Rules of international law are found in the sources of public international law. These are listed in the first instance in Article 38 of the Statute of the ICJ and cover: international treaties; international custom, as evidence of a general practice accepted as law
"It is the contention of this book that there was a notion of international law in the medieval period, and more specifically in the period 700 to 1200. It examines and analyses the ways and the extent to which such as system of rules was known and followed in the Middle Ages by exploring treaties as the main source of international law, and by following a known framework of evidencing it: that it was practised on a daily basis; that there was a reliance upon justification of action; that the majority of international legal rules were consistently obeyed; and finally, that it had the function to resolve disputed questions of fact and law.
This monograph further considers problems such as enforcement, deterrence, authority, and jurisdiction, considering carefully how they can be observed in the medieval evidence, and challenging traditional ideas over their role and function in the history of international law. This monograph then, attempts to make a leap forward in thinking about how rulers, communities, and political entities conducted diplomacy and regulated their interactions with each other in a period before fully fledged nation states.