The Legitimacy of Use of Force in Public and Islamic International Law


Book Description

This book investigates the legitimacy deficits of two potentially conflicting legal systems, namely Public and Islamic international law. It discusses the challenges that Public international law is being presented within the context of its relationship with Islamic international law. It explores how best to overcome these challenges through a comparative examination of state practices on the use of force. It highlights the legal-political legacies that evolved surrounding the claims of the legitimacy of use of force by armed non-state actors, states, and regional organizations. This book offers a critical analysis of these legacies in line with the Islamic Shari‘a law, United Nations Charter, state practices, and customs. It concludes that the legitimacy question has reached a vantage point where it cannot be answered either by Islamic or Public international law as a mutually exclusive legal system. Instead, Public international law must take a coherent approach within the existing legal framework.




Legitimacy, Justice and Public International Law


Book Description

"Most chapters in this volume were first presented at a symposium held at the University of Bern in December 2006"--Page ix.




Principles of Islamic International Criminal Law


Book Description

The goal of this book is to minimize the misunderstandings and conflicts between International law and Islamic law. The objective is to bring peace into justice and justice into peace for the prevention of violations of human rights law, humanitarian law, international criminal law, and impunity.




Islam and Warfare


Book Description

The question of how Islamic law regulates the notions of just recourse to and just conduct in war has long been the topic of heated controversy, and is often subject to oversimplification in scholarship and journalism. This book traces the rationale for aggression within the Islamic tradition, and assesses the meaning and evolution of the contentious concept of jihad. The book reveals that there has never been a unified position on what Islamic warfare tangibly entails, due to the complexity of relevant sources and discordant historical dynamics that have shaped the contours of jihad. Onder Bakircioglu advocates a dynamic reading of Islamic law and military tradition; one which prioritises the demands of contemporary international relations and considers the meaning and application of jihad as contingent on the socio-political forces of each historical epoch. This book will be of great interest to scholars and students of international law, Islamic law, war and security studies, and the law of armed conflict.




International Law and New Wars


Book Description

Examines the difficulties in applying international law to recent armed conflicts known as 'new wars'.




Self-Defence against Non-State Actors


Book Description

Provides a multi-perspective study of the international law on self-defence against non-State actors.




Islamic Law and International Law


Book Description

"Islamic Law and International Law is a comprehensive examination of differences and similarities between the Islamic legal tradition and international law, especially in the context of dispute settlement. Sharia embraces a unique logic and culture of justice--based on nonconfrontational dispute resolution--as taught by the Quran and the Prophet Muhammad. This book explains how the creeds of Islamic dispute resolution shape the Islamic milieu's views of international law. Is the Islamic legal tradition ab initio incompatible with international law, and how do states of the Islamic milieu view international courts, mediation, and arbitration? Islamic law constitutes an important part of the domestic legal system in many states of the Islamic milieu--Islamic law states--displacing secular law in state governance and affecting these states' contemporary international dealings. The book analyzes constitutional and subconstitutional laws in Islamic law states. The answer to the "Islamic law-international law nexus puzzle" lies in the diversity of how secular laws and religious laws fuse in domestic legal systems across the Islamic milieu. These states are not Islamic to the same degree or in the same way. Thus, different international conflict management methods appeal to different states, depending on each one's domestic legal system. The main claim of the book is that in many instances the Islamic legal tradition points in one direction while Western-based, secularized international law points in another direction. This conflict is partially softened by the reality that the Islamic legal tradition itself has elements fundamentally compatible with modern international law. Islamic legal tradition, international law, sharia settlement, peaceful dispute resolution"--




The Use of Force in International Law


Book Description

This volume of essays examines the development of political and legal thinking regarding the use of force in international relations. It provides an analysis of the rules on the use of force in the political, normative and factual contexts within which they apply and assesses their content and relevance in the light of new challenges such as terrorism, weapons of mass destruction and cyber-attacks. The volume begins with an overview of the ancient and medieval concepts of war and the use of force and then concentrates on the contemporary legal framework regulating the use of force as moulded by the United Nations Charter and state practice. In this regard it discusses specific issues such as the use of force by way of self-defence, armed reprisals, forcible reactions to terrorism, the use of force in the cyberspace, humanitarian intervention and the responsibility to protect. This collection of previously published classic research articles is of interest to scholars and students of international law and international relations as well as practitioners in international law.




Counter-Terrorism and the Use of Force in International Law


Book Description

In this paper, Michael Schmitt explores the legality of the attacks against Al Qaeda and the Taliban under the "jus ad bellum," that component of international law that governs when a State may resort to force as an instrument of national policy. Although States have conducted military counterterrorist operations in the past, the scale and scope of Operation Enduring Freedom may signal a sea change in strategies to defend against terrorism. This paper explores the normative limit on counterterrorist operations. Specifically, under what circumstances can a victim State react forcibly to an act of terrorism? Against whom? When? With what degree of severity? And for how long? The author contends that the attacks against Al Qaeda were legitimate exercises of the rights of individual and collective defense. They were necessary and proportional, and once the Taliban refused to comply with U.S. and United Nations demands to turn over the terrorists located in Afghanistan, it was legally appropriate for coalition forces to enter the country for the purpose of ending the ongoing Al Qaeda terrorist campaign. However, the attacks on the Taliban were less well grounded in traditional understandings of international law. Although the Taliban were clearly in violation of their legal obligation not to allow their territory to be used as a terrorist sanctuary, the author suggests that the degree and nature of the relationship between the Taliban and Al Qaeda may not have been such that the September 11 attacks could be attributed to the Taliban, thereby disallowing strikes against them in self-defense under traditional understandings of international law. Were the attacks, therefore, illegal? Not necessarily. Over the past half-century the international community's understanding of the international law governing the use of force by States has been continuously evolving. The author presents criteria likely to drive future assessments of the legality of counterterrorist operatio7.




The Oxford Handbook of the Use of Force in International Law


Book Description

This Oxford Handbook provides an authoritative and comprehensive analysis of one of the most controversial areas of international law. Over seventy contributors assess the current state of the international law prohibiting the use of force, assessing its development and analysing the many recent controversies that have arisen in this field.