The Limits of International Law

The Limits of International Law
Author: Jack L. Goldsmith
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 271
Release: 2005-02-03
Genre: Law
ISBN: 0199883378

International law is much debated and discussed, but poorly understood. Does international law matter, or do states regularly violate it with impunity? If international law is of no importance, then why do states devote so much energy to negotiating treaties and providing legal defenses for their actions? In turn, if international law does matter, why does it reflect the interests of powerful states, why does it change so often, and why are violations of international law usually not punished? In this book, Jack Goldsmith and Eric Posner argue that international law matters but that it is less powerful and less significant than public officials, legal experts, and the media believe. International law, they contend, is simply a product of states pursuing their interests on the international stage. It does not pull states towards compliance contrary to their interests, and the possibilities for what it can achieve are limited. It follows that many global problems are simply unsolvable. The book has important implications for debates about the role of international law in the foreign policy of the United States and other nations. The authors see international law as an instrument for advancing national policy, but one that is precarious and delicate, constantly changing in unpredictable ways based on non-legal changes in international politics. They believe that efforts to replace international politics with international law rest on unjustified optimism about international law's past accomplishments and present capacities.

Third World Approaches to International Law

Third World Approaches to International Law
Author: Usha Natarajan
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 396
Release: 2019-07-23
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1351704974

This book addresses the themes of praxis and the role of international lawyers as intellectuals and political actors engaging with questions of justice for Third World peoples. The book brings together 12 contributions from a total of 15 scholars working in the TWAIL (Third World Approaches to International Law) network or tradition. It includes chapters from some of the pioneering Third World jurists who have led this field since the time of decolonization, as well as prominent emerging scholars in the field. Broadly, the TWAIL orientation understands praxis as the relationship between what we say as scholars and what we do – as the inextricability of theory from lived experience. Understood in this way, praxis is central to TWAIL, as TWAIL scholars strive to reconcile international law’s promise of justice with the proliferation of injustice in the world it purports to govern. Reconciliation occurs in the realm of praxis and TWAIL scholars engage in a variety of struggles, including those for greater self-awareness, disciplinary upheaval, and institutional resistance and transformation. The rich diversity of contributions in the book engage these themes and questions through the various prisms of international institutional engagement, world trade and investment law, critical comparative law, Palestine solidarity and decolonization, judicial education, revolutionary struggle against imperial sovereignty, Muslim Marxism, Third World intellectual traditions, Global South constitutionalism, and migration. This book was originally published as a special issue of Third World Quarterly.

Permanent Sovereignty over Natural Resources

Permanent Sovereignty over Natural Resources
Author: Marc Bungenberg
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 234
Release: 2015-04-15
Genre: Law
ISBN: 3319157388

Fifty years after the adoption of the Declaration on Permanent Sovereignty over Natural Resources by the General Assembly of the United Nations in December 1962, this volume assesses the evolution of the principle of permanent sovereignty over natural resources into a principle of customary international law as well as related developments. International environmental and human rights law leave unresolved questions regarding the limitations of this principle, e.g. extraterritorial and international influences such as the applicable criminal and tort law, as well as the extraterritorial and international promotion of good governance, including transparency obligations.

To Reform the World

To Reform the World
Author: Guy Fiti Sinclair
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 369
Release: 2017
Genre: History
ISBN: 0198757964

This book explores how international organizations (IOs) have expanded their powers over time without formally amending their founding treaties. IOs intervene in military, financial, economic, political, social, and cultural affairs, and increasingly take on roles not explicitly assigned to them by law. Sinclair contends that this 'mission creep' has allowed IOs to intervene internationally in a way that has allowed them to recast institutions within and interactions among states, societies, and peoples on a broadly Western, liberal model. Adopting a historical and interdisciplinary, socio-legal approach, Sinclair supports this claim through detailed investigations of historical episodes involving three very different organizations: the International Labour Organization in the interwar period; the United Nations in the two decades following the Second World War; and the World Bank from the 1950s through to the 1990s. The book draws on a wide range of original institutional and archival materials, bringing to light little-known aspects of each organization's activities, identifying continuities in the ideas and practices of international governance across the twentieth century, and speaking to a range of pressing theoretical questions in present-day international law and international relations.

Russian Approaches to International Law

Russian Approaches to International Law
Author: Lauri Mälksoo
Publisher: Academic
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2015
Genre: History
ISBN: 0198723040

Provides a detailed analysis of how Russia's understanding of international law has developed Draws on historical, theoretical, and practical perspectives to offer the reader the 'big picture' of Russia's engagement with international law Extensively uses sources and resources in the Russian language, including many which are not easily available to scholars outside of Russia

Akehurst's Modern Introduction to International Law

Akehurst's Modern Introduction to International Law
Author: Alexander Orakhelashvili
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 675
Release: 2018-12-07
Genre: Law
ISBN: 0429799853

Akehurst’s Modern Introduction to International Law continues to offer a concise and accessible overview of the concepts, themes and issues central to international law. This fully updated eighth edition encompasses the plethora of recent developments and updates in the field, and includes new dedicated chapters on international human rights, self-determination and international economic relations, an extended history and theory section reflecting the evolution of new and critical approaches in the field and a greater focus on terrorism and international criminal law. New and updated chapters include: Creation and recognition of States Territory Law of the sea Immunities State succession Nationality and individual rights Protection of the environment Settlement of disputes Use of force and armed conflict With a distinctive cross-jurisdictional approach which opens up the discipline to students from all backgrounds, this book will arm the reader with all the tools, methods and concepts they need to fully understand this complex and diverse subject. As such, this is an essential text for students of international law, government and politics, international relations, and a multitude of related subject areas. This textbook is supported by a companion website: www.routledge.com/cw/orakhelashvili.

Minorities and the Making of Postcolonial States in International Law

Minorities and the Making of Postcolonial States in International Law
Author: Mohammad Shahabuddin
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 379
Release: 2021-06-10
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1108665233

The ideological function of the postcolonial 'national', 'liberal', and 'developmental' state inflicts various forms of marginalisation on minorities, but simultaneously justifies oppression in the name of national unity, equality and non-discrimination, and economic development. International law plays a central role in the ideological making of the postcolonial state in relation to postcolonial boundaries, the liberal-individualist architecture of rights, and the neoliberal economic vision of development. In this process, international law subjugates minority interests and in turn aggravates the problem of ethno-nationalism. Analysing the geneses of ethno-nationalism in postcolonial states, Mohammad Shahabuddin substantiates these arguments with in-depth case studies on the Rohingya and the hill people of the Chittagong Hill Tracts, against the historical backdrop of the minority question in Indian nationalist and constitutional discourse. Shahabuddin also proposes alternative international law frameworks for minorities.