The Power of Language in the Making of International Law


Book Description

It is in the intellectual context of the new possibility of philosophy, and the great new challenge facing philosophy, that I place Stephane Beaulac's important book. His work takes advantage, in particular, of several of the hard-earned lessons of twentieth-century philosophy and social experience. "From the Foreword,"




Meaning and Power in the Language of Law


Book Description

A new perspective on how far law's power derives from socially situated communication rather than from abstract rules.




The Power and Purpose of International Law


Book Description

The world is poised for another important transition. The United States is dealing with the impact of the Afghan and Iraq wars, the use of torture and secret detention, Guantanamo, climate change, nuclear proliferation, weakened international institutions, and other issues related directly or indirectly to international law. The world needs an accurate account of the important role of international law and The Power and Purpose of International Law seeks to provide it. Mary Ellen O'Connell explains the purpose of international law and the power it has to achieve that purpose. International law supports order in the world and the attainment of humanity's fundamental goals of peace, prosperity, respect for human rights, and protection of the natural environment. These goals can best be realized through international law, which uniquely has the capacity to bind even a superpower of the world. By exploring the roots and history of international law, and by looking at specific events in the history of international law, this book demonstrates the why and the how of international law and its enforcement. It directly confronts the notion that international law is "powerless" and that working within the framework of international law is useless or counter-productive. As the world moves forward, it is critical that both leaders and their citizens understand the true power and purpose of international law and this book creates a valuable resource for them to aid their understanding. It uses a clear, compelling style to convey topical, informative and cutting-edge information to the reader.




Time, History and International Law


Book Description

This book examines theoretical and practical issues concerning the relationship between international law, time and history. Problems relating to time and history are ever-present in the work of international lawyers, whether understood in terms of the role of historic practice in the doctrine of sources, the application of the principle of inter-temporal law in dispute settlement, or in gaining a coherent insight into the role that was played by international law in past events. But very little has been written about the various different ways in which international lawyers approach or understand the past, and it is with a view to exploring the dynamics of that engagement that this book has been compiled. In its broadest sense, it is possible to identify at least three different ways in which the relationship between international law and (its) history may be conceived. The first is that of a "history of international law" written in narrative form, and mapped out in terms of a teleology of origins, development, progress or renewal. The second is that of "history in international law" and of the role history plays in arguments about law itself (for example in the construction of customary international law). The third way of understanding that relationship is in terms of "international law in history": of understanding how international law has been engaged in the creation of a history that in some senses stands outside the history of international law itself. The essays in this collection make clear that each type of engagement with history and international law interweaves various different types of historical narrative, pointing to the typically multi-layered nature of internationallawyers' engagement with the past and its importance in shaping the present and future of international law.




Mobilising International Law for 'Global Justice'


Book Description

Critically explores how international law is mobilised, by global and local actors, to achieve or block global justice efforts.




Is International Law International?


Book Description

This book challenges the idea that international law looks the same from anywhere in the world. Instead, how international lawyers understand and approach their field is often deeply influenced by the national contexts in which they lived, studied, and worked. International law in the United States and in the United Kingdom looks different compared to international law in China and Russia, though some approaches (particularly Western, Anglo-American ones) are more influential outside their borders than others. Given shifts in geopolitical power and the rise of non-Western powers like China, it is increasingly important for international lawyers to understand how others coming from diverse backgrounds approach the field. By examining the international law academies and textbooks of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, Roberts provides a window into these different communities of international lawyers, and she uncovers some of the similarities and differences in how they understand and approach international law.




International Law


Book Description

International Law is both an introduction to the subject and a critical consideration of its central themes and debates. The opening chapters of the book explain how international law underpins the international political and economic system by establishing the basic principle of the independence of States, and their right to choose their own political, economic, and cultural systems. Subsequent chapters then focus on considerations that limit national freedom of choice (e.g. human rights, the interconnected global economy, the environment). Through the organizing concepts of territory, sovereignty, and jurisdiction the book shows how international law seeks to achieve an established set of principles according to which the power to make and enforce policies is distributed among States.




How to Do Things with International Law


Book Description

A runner-up for the 2018 Chadwick Alger Prize, International Studies Association's International Organization Section, this provocative reassessment of the rule of law in world politics examines how and why governments use and manipulate international law in foreign policy.







Decolonising International Law


Book Description

The universal promise of contemporary international law has long inspired countries of the Global South to use it as an important field of contestation over global inequality. Taking three central examples, Sundhya Pahuja argues that this promise has been subsumed within a universal claim for a particular way of life by the idea of 'development'. As the horizon of the promised transformation and concomitant equality has receded ever further, international law has legitimised an ever-increasing sphere of intervention in the Third World. The post-war wave of decolonisation ended in the creation of the developmental nation-state, the claim to permanent sovereignty over natural resources in the 1950s and 1960s was transformed into the protection of foreign investors, and the promotion of the rule of international law in the early 1990s has brought about the rise of the rule of law as a development strategy in the present day.




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