The Territorial Jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court


Book Description

Michael Vagias analyses the law and procedure surrounding the territorial jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court.




Territorial Acquisition, Disputes and International Law


Book Description

This book analyzes the traditional criteria of territorial acquisition and demonstrates their inadequacies in the modern context. It also addresses contemporary territorial doctrines and conflicts. It regards territorial acquisition as a comprehensive process involving various considerations leading to the establishment or transfer of exclusive control over territory. This approach has many advantages and adds to the development of the law of territorial acquisition. The author also provides an analysis of the claims and counter-claims in major contemporary territorial disputes and suggests appropriate legal perspectives bearing upon decision-making in regard to them. This book will be highly useful to students, academics and practitioners in the field of international law, as well as all governments and institutions dealing with territorial matters.




Territorial Disputes and State Sovereignty


Book Description

Adopting a multi-disciplinary approach, this book opens new ground for research on territorial disputes. Many sovereignty conflicts remain unresolved around the world. Current solutions in law, political science and international relations generally prove problematic to at least one of the agents part of these differences. Arguing that disputes are complex, multi-layered and multi-faceted, this book brings together a global, inter-disciplinary view of territorial disputes. The book reviews the key conceptual elements central to legal and political sciences with regards to territorial disputes: state, sovereignty and self-determination. Looking at some of the current long-standing disputes worldwide, it compares and contrasts the many issues at stake and the potential remedies currently available in order to assess why some territorial disputes remain unresolved. Finally, it offers a set of guidelines for dispute settlement and conflict resolution that current remedies fail to provide. It will appeal to students and scholars working in international relations, legal theory and jurisprudence, public international law and political sciences.




Territorial Acquisition, Disputes, and International Law


Book Description

This book analyzes the traditional criteria of territorial acquisition and demonstrates their inadequacies in the modern context. It also addresses contemporary territorial doctrines and conflicts. It regards territorial acquisition as a comprehensive process involving various considerations leading to the establishment or transfer of exclusive control over territory. This approach has many advantages and adds to the development of the law of territorial acquisition. The author also provides an analysis of the claims and counter-claims in major contemporary territorial disputes and suggests appropriate legal perspectives bearing upon decision-making in regard to them. This book will be highly useful to students, academics and practitioners in the field of international law, as well as all governments and institutions dealing with territorial matters.




Territorial Rights


Book Description

Liberal defences of nationalism have become prevalent since the mid-1980’s. Curiously, they have largely neglected the fact that nationalism is primarily about land. Should liberals throw up their hands in despair when confronting conflicting claims stemming from incommensurable national narratives and holy texts? Should they dismiss conflicting demands that stem solely from particular cultures, religions and mythologies in favour of a supposedly neutral set of guidelines? Does history matter? Should ancient injustices interest us today? Should we care who reached the territory first and who were its prior inhabitants? Should principles of utility play a part in resolving territorial disputes? Was John Locke right to argue that the utilisation of land counts in favour of its acquisition? And should Western style settlement projects work in favour or against a nation’s territorial demands? When and how should principles of equality and equal distribution come into play? Territorial Rights examines the generic types of territorial claims customarily put forward by national groups as justification for their territorial demands, within the framework of what has come to be known as ‘liberal nationalism’. The final outcome is a multifarious theory on the ethics of territorial boundaries that supplies a workable set of guidelines for evaluating territorial disputes from a liberal-national perspective, and offers a common ground for discussion (including disagreement) and for the mediation of claims.




International Law and the Reconceptualization of Territorial Boundaries


Book Description

This book critically analyzes the state-based regime of international law, eliciting its colonial and decolonial origins and proposing a new sub-regional basis for dealing with contemporary global challenges. Since 1648, public international law has taken many steps to maintain peace and establish a just order. The State is deemed central to each of these efforts. Yet modern challenges, such as environmental mitigation, mass migration, and the need to stimulate economic growth, overwhelm the State. Could a regional approach to these questions, achieved in conjunction with strong sub-national local governance, establish a more effective framework for systemic change? Drawing on a history of colonization and decolonization, while scrutinizing decisions made about the imposition of the State on the basis of colonial boundaries, this multidisciplinary work analyses why current challenges are unlikely to be adequately addressed through existing governance structures. In response, it advocates for a sub-regional, transnational approach, drawing on analyses of pre-colonial shared histories and contemporary population ethnographies unfettered by hegemonic boundary drawing. The book argues that collaboration across such frontiers in the face of climate and other challenges may offer more feasible approaches to the pursuit of peace than the unquestioned maintenance of state-based structures of inherited privilege. This book will appeal to scholars and others with interests in international law, international relations, and international politics, as well as in the history and politics of colonialism.




State Territory and International Law


Book Description

This book proposes a re-interpretation of Article 2(4) of the Charter of the United Nations to read, or at least include, respect for the inviolability of State territory. While States purport to obey the prohibition of the Use of Force, they frequently engage in activities that could undermine international peace and security. In this book the author argues that State practice, opinio juris, as well as contentious and advisory opinions of the International Court of Justice, have promoted the first limb of Article 2(4). Although wars between States have decreased, the maintenance of international peace and security remains a mirage, as shown by the increase in intra- and inter-State conflicts across the world. The author seeks to initiate a rethinking of the provision of Article 2(4), which the International Court of Justice has described as the cornerstone of the United Nations. The author argues that the time is ripe for States to embrace an evolutive interpretation of Article 2(4) to mean respect, as opposed to the traditional view of the threat, or the use, of force. He also evaluates the discourse regarding territorial jurisdiction in cyberspace and argues that the efforts made by the international community to apply Article 2(4) to cyberspace suggest that the article is a flexible and live instrument that should be adjusted to address the circumstances that endanger international peace and security. This book will engineer a serious debate regarding the scope of Article 2(4), which before now has always been limited to the threat or use of force. As a result, it will be of interest to academics and students of public international law, as well as diplomats and policymakers.




Territorial Jurisprudence


Book Description




Global Legal Pluralism


Book Description

We live in a world of legal pluralism, where a single act or actor is potentially regulated by multiple legal or quasi-legal regimes imposed by state, substate, transnational, supranational and nonstate communities. Navigating these spheres of complex overlapping legal authority is confusing and we cannot expect territorial borders to solve all these problems. At the same time, those hoping to create one universal set of legal rules are also likely to be disappointed by the sheer variety of human communities and interests. Instead, we need an alternative jurisprudence, one that seeks to create or preserve spaces for productive interaction among multiple, overlapping legal systems by developing procedural mechanisms, institutions and practices that aim to manage, without eliminating, the legal pluralism we see around us. Global Legal Pluralism provides a broad synthesis across a variety of legal doctrines and academic disciplines and offers a novel conceptualization of law and globalization.




Territorial Integrity in a Globalizing World


Book Description

This book offers a comprehensive, highly informative and interdisciplinary study on territorial integrity and the challenges globalization, self-determination and external interventions present. This study aims at not only to fill an epistemological gap in this regard, but also answer the question of whether International Law is adequately equipped to help states address these challenges. The author argues that the biggest threat that many states are confronted with today is their disintegration rather than their obsolescence, and that International Law has not often been able to prevent that eventuality. In fact, states, when they were not destroyed by war, managed to survive, thanks to the flexibility of territoriality, i.e. their ability to adjust to difficult situations as they arose. It is this understanding of adaptation that urges an increasing number of states today to revive territorial autonomy and restore an original understanding of self-determination in which democracy is a pivotal factor in establishing congruence between the states and their nations. While this move is endorsed by International Law, it is not the case for globalization; for their own sake, proponents of globalization should recognize that the states are irreplaceable as long as they remain the sole providers of protection for their peoples.