New Issue: International Theory

The latest issue of International Theory (Vol. 1, no. 2, July 2009) is out. Contents include:

• Anna Stilz, Why do states have territorial rights?
• Sergei Prozorov, Generic universalism in world politics: beyond international anarchy and the world state
• Stacie E. Goddard, Brokering change: networks and entrepreneurs in international politics
• Symposium on Andrew Guzman's How International Law Works
• Andrew T. Guzman, How international law works: introduction
• Andrew Kydd, Reputation and cooperation: Guzman on international law
• Alexander Thompson, The rational enforcement of international law: solving the sanctioners’ dilemma
• Rachel Brewster, The limits of reputation on compliance
• Andrew T. Guzman, How international law works: a response to commentators

Conference: XXI Congreso Argentino de Derecho Internacional

The Asociación Argentina de Derecho Internacional will host the XXI Congreso Argentino de Derecho Internacional, October 1-3, 2009, at the Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Information on conference themes and registration is available here.

New Issue: International Journal of Human Rights

The latest issue of the International Journal of Human Rights (Vol. 13, no. 1, 2009) is out. Contents include:

• Cathal Doyle, Millennium Development Goals and human rights: in common cause or uneasy partners?
• Joshua Castellino, The MDGs and international human rights law: a view from the perspective of minorities and vulnerable groups
• Elvira Domnguez Redondo, The Millennium Development Goals and the human rights based approach: reflecting on structural chasms with the United Nations system
• Cathal Doyle, Indigenous peoples and the Millennium Development Goals - 'sacrificial lambs' or equal beneficiaries?
• Guido Schmidt-Traub, The Millennium Development Goals and human rights-based approaches: moving towards a shared approach
• Magdalena Seplveda Carmona, The obligations of 'international assistance and cooperation' under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. A possible entry point to a human rights based approach to Millennium Development Goal 8

Rovine: Contemporary Issues in International Arbitration and Mediation: The Fordham Papers 2008

Arthur W. Rovine has published Contemporary Issues in International Arbitration and Mediation: The Fordham Papers 2008 (Martinus Nijhoff Publishers 2009). Here's the abstract:

Contemporary Issues in International Arbitration and Mediation - The Fordham Papers 2008 is the second annual volume of papers on international arbitration and mediation written by leading figures in the field who spoke at the 2008 Fordham Law School Conference on International Arbitration, held at Fordham in New York City on June 16-17, 2008. The 24 papers are organized into five parts that address investor-state arbitration, recent significant domestic judicial decisions involving or potentially involving international arbitration, class actions and consolidation in international arbitration, intellectual property and information technology issues, and mediation, including confidentiality, qualifications, M & A outcomes, the European Directive, and mediation in China. The papers focus on both practical considerations and scholarly analyses.

New Issue: Journal of Conflict Resolution

The latest issue of the Journal of Conflict Resolution (Vol. 53, no. 4, August 2009) is out. Contents include:

• Lars-Erik Cederman & Kristian Skrede Gleditsch, Introduction to Special Issue on "Disaggregating Civil War"
• Lars-Erik Cederman, Halvard Buhaug, & Jan Ketil Rod, Ethno-Nationalist Dyads and Civil War: A GIS-Based Analysis
• Nils B. Weidmann, Geography as Motivation and Opportunity: Group Concentration and Ethnic Conflict
• Halvard Buhaug, Scott Gates, & Paivi Lujala, Geography, Rebel Capability, and the Duration of Civil Conflict
• David E. Cunningham, Kristian Skrede Gleditsch, & Idean Salehyan, It Takes Two: A Dyadic Analysis of Civil War Duration and Outcome
• Havard Hegre, Gudrun Ostby, & Clionadh Raleigh, Poverty and Civil War Events: A Disaggregated Study of Liberia
• Kyle Beardsley & Brian McQuinn, Rebel Groups as Predatory Organizations: The Political Effects of the 2004 Tsunami in Indonesia and Sri Lanka

Morsink: Inherent Human Rights: Philosophical Roots of the Universal Declaration

Johannes Morsink (Drew Univ. - Philosophy) has published Inherent Human Rights: Philosophical Roots of the Universal Declaration (Univ. of Pennsylvania Press 2009). This is another volume in the series Pennsylvania Studies in Human Rights. Here's the abstract:

Confronting the evils of World War II and building on the legacy of the 1776 Declaration of Independence and the 1789 French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, a group of world citizens including Eleanor Roosevelt drafted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Adopted by the United Nations in 1948, the Universal Declaration has been translated into 300 languages and has become the basis for most other international human rights texts and norms. In spite of the global success of this document, however, a philosophical disconnect exists between what major theorists have said a human right is and the foundational text of the very movement they advocate.

In Inherent Human Rights: Philosophical Roots of the Universal Declaration, philosopher and political theorist Johannes Morsink offers an alternative to contemporary assumptions. A major historian of the Universal Declaration, Morsink traces the philosophical roots of the Declaration back to the Enlightenment and to a shared revulsion at the horrors of the Holocaust. He defends the Declaration's perspective that all people have human rights simply by virtue of being born into the human family and that human beings have these rights regardless of any government or court action (or inaction). Like mathematical principles, human rights are truly universal, not the products of a particular culture, economic scheme, or political system. Our understanding of their existence can be blocked only by madness and false ideologies. Morsink argues that the drafters of the Declaration shared this metaphysical view of human rights. By denying the inherence of human rights and their metaphysical nature, and removing the concepts of the Declaration from their historical and philosophical context, contemporary constructivist scholars and pragmatic activists create an unnecessary and potentially dangerous political fog. The book carefully dissects various human rights models and ends with a defense of the Declaration's cosmopolitan vision against charges of unrealistic utopianism and Western ethnocentrism.

Inherent Human Rights takes exception to the reigning view that the Golden Rule is the best defense of human rights. Instead, it calls for us to "follow the lead of the Declaration's drafters and liberate the idea of human rights from the realm of the political and the juridical, which is where contemporary theorists have imprisoned it."

Lavranos: Judicial Review of UN Sanctions by the European Court of Justice

Nikos Lavranos (European Univ. Institute - Law) has posted Judicial Review of UN Sanctions by the European Court of Justice. Here's the abstract:

With its Kadi-judgment, the European Court of Justice firmly rejected the Kadi/Yusuf-judgments of the Court of First Instance. The Court of Justice made unambiguously clear that Community law, in particular its basic, core fundamental rights values prevail over any international law obligations of the EC and its Member States, including UN Security Council Resolutions and the UN Charter. As a consequence thereof, individuals targeted by UN sanctions must have access to full judicial review in order to be able to ensure the eff ective protection of their fundamental rights, including procedural rights as guaranteed by the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR). As a result, the Court of Justice proved that the Community is indeed based on the rule of law and that the fi ght against terrorism - how important it may be - cannot be used as a justifi cation for completely abrogating European constitutional law values as guaranteed within the Community and its Member States.

Barcelo: Expanded Judicial Review of Awards After Hall Street and in Comparative Perspective

John James Barcelo III (Cornell Univ. - Law) has posted Expanded Judicial Review of Awards After Hall Street and in Comparative Perspective (in Resolving International Conflicts: Libor Amicorum Tibor Varady, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

The essay addresses whether party preference for more intrusive court review of the facts and law of an aribitral award will (or should) be respected in national arbitration law. The recent U.S. Supreme Court decision in Hall Street rules that expanded review clauses are not enforceable under the Federal Arbitration Act. The essay argues, however, that expanded review of an international arbitral award should still be possible in the U.S. if the parties draft the arbitration clause carefully. For that purpose the parties should include an expanded review clause and should place the arbitral seat in a State that allows expanded review - for example, California. They should also expressly provide that the arbitration be governed by that State’s arbitration law. A respondent seeking to subject an unfavorable award to expanded review could then file for set-aside in the State courts of the seat. Even if the award creditor were to remove to federal court, the essay argues that a federal court should apply the State arbitration law, which, in the case of California, allows expanded review when the parties expressly provide for it. The essay also discusses the options for obtaining expanded review of an award under Swiss, Italian, Swedish, and English law.

Douglas: The International Law of Investment Claims

Zachary Douglas (Univ. of Cambridge - Law & Matrix Chambers) has published The International Law of Investment Claims (Cambridge Univ. Press 2009). Here's the abstract:

The International Law of Investment Claims considers the distinct principles governing the prosecution of a claim in investment treaty arbitration. The principles are codified as 54 ‘rules’ of general application on the juridical foundations of investment treaty arbitration, the jurisdiction of the tribunal, the admissibility of claims and the laws applicable to different aspects of the investment dispute. The commentary to each proposed rule contains a critical analysis of the investment treaty jurisprudence and makes extensive reference to the decisions of other international courts and tribunals, as well as to the relevant experience of municipal legal orders. Solutions are elaborated in respect of the most intractable problems that have arisen in the cases, including: the effect of an exclusive jurisdiction clause in an investment agreement with the host state; reliance on the MFN clause in relation to jurisdictional provisions; and, the legitimate scope of derivative claims by shareholders.

Capps: Human Dignity and the Foundations of International Law

Patrick Capps (Univ. of Bristol - Law) has published Human Dignity and the Foundations of International Law (Hart Publishing 2009). Here's the abstract:

International lawyers have often been interested in the link between their discipline and the foundational issues of jurisprudential method, but little that is systematic has been written on this subject. In this book, an attempt is made to fill this gap by focusing on issues of concept-formation in legal science in general with a view to their application to the specific concerns of international law.

In responding to these issues, the author argues that public international law seeks to establish and institutionalise a system of authoritative judgment whereby the conditions by which a community of states can co-exist and co-operate are ensured. A state, in turn, must be understood as ultimately deriving legitimacy from the pursuit of the human dignity of the community it governs, as well as the dignity of those human beings and states affected by its actions in international relations. This argument is in line with a long and now resurgent Kantian tradition in legal and political philosophy.

The book shows how this approach is reflected in accepted paradigm cases of international law, such as the United Nations Charter. It then explains how this approach can provide insights into the theoretical foundations of these accepted paradigms, including our understanding of the sources of international law, international legal personality and the design of global institutions.

New Issue: Australian Journal of Human Rights

The latest issue of the Australian Journal of Human Rights (Vol. 14, no. 2, 2009) is out. Contents include:

• Thalia Anthony, Quantum of strategic litigation—quashing public participation
• Jonathon Hunyor, Is it time to re-think special measures under the Racial Discrimination Act? The case of the Northern Territory Intervention
• Marie Segrave, Human trafficking and human rights
• Katharine Gelber, Academic freedom and the 'intellectual diversity' movement in Australia
• Adam Stone, Accountability, victims and reconciliation in South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission
• Karen O'Connell, The clean and proper body: genetics, stigma and disability discrimination laws

Shaffer & Pollack: Hard vs. Soft Law: Alternatives, Complements and Antagonists in International Governance

Gregory Shaffer (Univ. of Minnesota - Law) & Mark A. Pollack (Temple Univ. - Political Science) have posted Hard vs. Soft Law: Alternatives, Complements and Antagonists in International Governance (Minnesota Law Review, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

This article addresses the interaction of hard and soft law in a fragmented international law system. This issue is increasingly important in a world where functional international regimes proliferate to address globalization and national interdependence without any overarching legal hierarchy. The article makes three core claims in contradistinction to the existing literature. The first and primary claim is that international hard and soft law instruments can serve not only as alternatives or complements, but also as antagonists in many situations. The second, related claim is that this interaction has particular implications in a fragmented international law system, affecting the very nature of international hard and soft law regimes and their purported advantages. The interaction of hard and soft law regimes can lead to the hardening of soft law regimes, resulting in more strategic bargaining and reducing their purported advantages of consensus-building through information-sharing and persuasion; and it can lead to the softening of hard law regimes, resulting in reduced legal certainty and predictability, especially where there is distributive conflict between powerful states. The third and final claim is that the interaction of hard and soft law is not a binary either/or question, but one of specifying the conditions under which we can expect actors to employ hard and soft law as alternatives, complements or antagonists. The existing literature is not wrong in focusing on how hard and soft law may be employed as complements, but this literature tells only part of the story. The article provides an overarching theoretical framework for understanding the conditions under which states and other actors choose to employ hard and soft law in different ways, emphasizing the importance of distributive conflict among countries and their constituencies and the rise of regime complexes as conditions favorable to the use of hard and soft law as antagonists.

Olásolo: The Criminal Responsibility of Senior Political and Military Leaders as Principals to International Crimes

Héctor Olásolo (Univ. of Utrecht - Law) has published The Criminal Responsibility of Senior Political and Military Leaders as Principals to International Crimes (Hart Publishing 2009). Here's the abstract:

As shown by the trials of Slobodan Milosevic, Charles Taylor and Saddam Hussein, the large-scale and systematic commission of international crimes is usually planned and set in motion by senior political and military leaders. Nevertheless, the application of traditional forms of criminal liability leads to the conclusion that they are mere accessories to such crimes. This does not reflect their central role and often results in a punishment which is inappropriately low in view of the impact of their actions and omissions. For these reasons, international criminal law has placed special emphasis on the development of concepts, such as control of the crime and joint criminal enterprise (also known as the common purpose doctrine), which aim at reflecting better the central role played by senior political and military leaders in campaigns of large scale and systematic commission of international crimes. The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court and the case law of the ICTY and the ICTR have, in recent years, played a unique role in the achievement of this goal.

Nollkaemper & van der Wilt: System Criminality in International Law

André Nollkaemper (Univ. of Amsterdam - Amsterdam Center for International Law) & Harmen van der Wilt (Univ. of Amsterdam - Amsterdam Center for International Law) have published System Criminality in International Law (Cambridge Univ. Press 2009). Here's the abstract:

International crimes, such as crimes against humanity, genocide and war crimes, are committed by individuals. However, individuals rarely commit such crimes for their own profit. Instead, such crimes are often caused by collective entities. Notable examples include the ‘dirty war’ in Argentina in the 1970s and 1980s, the atrocities committed during the Balkan Wars in the early 1990s and the crimes committed during the ongoing armed conflicts in the Darfur area in Sudan. Referring to Darfur, the Prosecutor of the ICC noted in 2008 that, although he had indicted a few individuals, ‘the information gathered points to an ongoing pattern of crimes committed with the mobilisation of the whole state apparatus’. This book reviews the main legal avenues that are available within the international legal order to address the increasingly important problem of system criminality and identifies possible improvements.

Contents include:

• A. Nollkaemper, Introduction
• H. C. Kelman, The policy context of international crimes
• M. Punch, Why organizations kill – and get away with it: the failure of law to cope with crime in organizations
• G. Simpson, Men and abstract entities: individual responsibility and collective guilt in international criminal law
• A. Gattini, A historical perspective: from collective to individual responsibility and back
• K. Ambos, Command responsibility and organisationsherrschaft: ways of attributing international crimes to the 'most responsible'
• H. van der Wilt, Joint criminal enterprise and functional perpetration
• E. van Sliedrecht, System criminality at the ICTY
• N. Jørgensen, Criminality of organisations under international law
• A. Eser, Criminality of organisations: lessons from domestic law – a comparative perspective
• J. Kleffner, The collective accountability of organized armed groups for system crimes
• I. Scobbie, Assumptions and presuppositions: state responsibility for system crimes
• A. Zimmermann & M. Teichmann, State responsibility for international crimes
• N. White, Responses of political organs to crimes by states
• A. Nollkaemper & H. van der Wilt, Conclusions and outlook

New Issue: World Trade Review

The latest issue of the World Trade Review (Vol. 8, no. 3, July 2009) is out. Contents include:

• Alberto Portugal-Perez & John S. Wilson, Why trade facilitation matters to Africa
• Jaime Tijmes-Lhl, Consensus and majority voting in the WTO
• Panagiotis Delimatsis, Financial innovation and climate change: the case of renewable energy certificates and the role of the GATS

Sands & Klein: Bowett's Law of International Institutions (6th edition)

Philippe Sands & Pierre Klein have published the sixth edition of Bowett's Law of International Institutions (Sweet & Maxwell 2009). Here's the abstract:

Bowett's Law of International Institutions is the leading introduction to this complex, important and growing area of international law, with increasing significance for developments at the national level. Covering all the major global, regional and judicial institutions and all international organisations that regulate aspects of development and providing an introductory overview of the law of international organisations, including international courts and tribunals as a whole.

The book offers a basic framework, insights into some of the more essential issues, and indications of where to find more detail. Bowett's is essential reading for students of international law and international relations and will also be of considerable interest to lawyers practising in the area.

Babb: Behind the Development Banks: Washington Politics, World Poverty, and the Wealth of Nations

Sarah Babb (Boston College - Sociology) has published Behind the Development Banks: Washington Politics, World Poverty, and the Wealth of Nations (Univ. of Chicago Press 2009). Here's the abstract:

The World Bank and other multilateral development banks (MDBs) carry out their mission to alleviate poverty and promote economic growth based on the advice of professional economists. But as Sarah Babb argues in Behind the Development Banks, these organizations have also been indelibly shaped by Washington politics—particularly by the legislative branch and its power of the purse.

Tracing American influence on MDBs over three decades, this volume assesses increased congressional activism and the perpetual “selling” of banks to Congress by the executive branch. Babb contends that congressional reluctance to fund the MDBs has enhanced the influence of the United States on them by making credible America’s threat to abandon the banks if its policy preferences are not followed. At a time when the United States’ role in world affairs is being closely scrutinized, Behind the Development Banks will be necessary reading for anyone interested in how American politics helps determine the fate of developing countries.

Roach: Governance, Order, and the International Criminal Court

Steven C. Roach (Univ. of South Florida - Government and International Affairs) has published Governance, Order, and the International Criminal Court: Between Realpolitik and a Cosmopolitan Court (Oxford Univ. Press 2009). Contents include:

• Steven C. Roach, Introduction: Global Governance in Context
• Charles A. Smith & Heather M. Smith, Embedded Realpolitik? Re-evaluating United States' Opposition to the International Criminal Court
• Eric K. Leonard & Steven C. Roach, From Realism to Legalization: A Rationalist Assessment of the International Criminal Court and its Role in the Democratic Republic of Congo
• Caroline Fehl, Explaining the International Criminal Court: A Practice Test for Rationalist and Constructivist Approaches
• Michael J. Struett, The Politics of Discursive Legitimacy: Understanding the Implications of Prosecutorial Discretion at the ICC
• Jason G. Ralph, Anarchy is What Criminal Lawyers and other Actors Make of it: International Criminal Justice as an Institution of International and World society
• Patrick Hayden, Political Evil, Cosmopolitan Realism, and the Normative Ambivalence of the International Criminal Court
• Antonio Franceschet, Four Cosmopolitan Projects: the International Criminal Court in Context
• Amy E. Eckert, The Cosmopolitan Test: Universal Morality and the Challenge of the Darfur Genocide
• Steven C. Roach, Justice of the Peace? Future Challenges and Prospects for a Cosmopolitan Court

New Issue: European Journal of International Law

The latest issue of the European Journal of International Law (Vol. 20, no. 2, April 2009) is out. Contents include:

• Bruno Simma, Universality of International Law from the Perspective of a Practitioner
• Symposium: The Use of Force
• Dino Kritsiotis, Close Encounters of a Sovereign Kind
• Kenneth Anderson, The Rise of International Criminal Law: Intended and Unintended Consequences
• Christian J. Tams, The Use of Force against Terrorists
• Tullio Treves, Piracy, Law of the Sea, and Use of Force: Developments off the Coast of Somalia
• Critical Review of Jurisprudence: An Occasional Series
• Janine Natalya Clark, Plea Bargaining at the ICTY: Guilty Pleas and Reconciliation
• EJIL: Debate!
• Roda Mushkat, Incomplete Internalization and Compliance with Human Rights Law: A Reply to Ryan Goodman and Derek Jinks
• Ryan Goodman & Derek Jinks, Incomplete Internalization and Compliance with Human Rights Law: A Rejoinder to Roda Mushkat

Provost: Asymmetrical Reciprocity and Compliance with the Laws of War

René Provost (McGill Univ. - Law) has posted Asymmetrical Reciprocity and Compliance with the Laws of War. Here's the abstract:

How does one get the Taliban in Afghanistan, the FARC in Colombia, Russian troops in Georgia, and Blackwater contractors in Iraq, to improve their dismal record of compliance with international humanitarian law? The recipe, inasmuch as one can be surmised, will involve a complex mix of carrot and stick, normative and political, humanitarian and strategic. One basic question is the degree to which reciprocity is a toxic factor in the normative dynamics of international humanitarian law, importing conditionality and offering excuses to match any violation committed by the other side, or whether there lies in reciprocity a force that can be successfully marshalled to improve the protection of the victims of war. A second related question is the extent to which an armed conflict has to involved symmetrical forces in order for reciprocity to operate at all. Should we agree with Marco Sassoli that “reciprocity . . . does not work in asymmetrical conflicts”? The paper attempts to show that even in asymmetrical conflicts so unreceptive to humanitarian ideals as the ones listed above, reciprocity offers such potential that it should not be discounted as merely another hurdle to overcome in the application of the laws of war, but rather that one of the bases on which legitimate norms can be established to link participants variously positioned in a regime like international humanitarian law.

New Volume: Asian Yearbook of International Law

The latest volume of the Asian Yearbook of International Law (Vol. 13, 2007) is out. Contents include:

• Ben Chigara, The Unfinished Business of Human Rights Protection and the Increasing Threat of International Terrorism
• Special Feature: Selected Papers, International Symposium of the Asian Society of International Law, 7-8 April 2007
• Jean d'Aspremont, International law in Asia: The Limits to the Western Constitutionalist and Liberal Doctrines
• Richard Burchill, Regional Integration and the Promotion and Protection of Democracy in Asia: Lessons from ASEAN
• H. Harry L. Roque, Jr, Export of War: Issues of Individual Criminal and State Responsibility
• Sakai Hironobu, "As if" Acting under Chapter VII of the UN Charter?: Rigidity of the Threshold Between Chapter VII and non-Chapter VII
• Mary George, The Role of IMO Resolutions in Ocean Law and Policy in the Asia-Pacific

Pollack & Shaffer: When Cooperation Fails: The International Law and Politics of Genetically Modified Foods

Mark A. Pollack (Temple Univ. - Political Science) & Gregory C. Shaffer (Univ. of Minnesota - Law) have published When Cooperation Fails: The International Law and Politics of Genetically Modified Foods (Oxford Univ. Press 2009). Here's the abstract:

The transatlantic dispute over genetically modified organisms (GMOs) has brought into conflict the United States and the European Union, two long-time allies and economically interdependent democracies with a long record of successful cooperation. Yet the dispute - pitting a largely acceptant US against an EU deeply suspicious of GMOs - has developed into one of the most bitter and intractable transatlantic and global conflicts, resisting efforts at negotiated resolution and resulting in a bitterly contested legal battle before the World Trade Organization.

Professors Pollack and Shaffer investigate the obstacles to reconciling regulatory differences among nations through international cooperation, through the lens of the GMO dispute. The book addresses the dynamic interactions of domestic law and politics, transnational networks, international regimes, and global markets, through a theoretically grounded and empirically comprehensive analysis of the governance of GM foods and crops. They demonstrate that the deeply politicized, entrenched and path-dependent nature of the regulation of GMOs in the US and the EU has fundamentally shaped negotiations and decision-making at the international level, limiting the prospects for deliberation and providing incentives for both sides to engage in hard bargaining and to shop for favorable international forums. They then assess the impacts, and the limits, of international pressures on domestic US and European law, politics and business practice, which have remained strikingly resistant to change.

International cooperation in areas like GMO regulation, the authors conclude, must overcome multiple obstacles, legal and political, domestic and international. Any effective response to this persistent dispute, they argue, must recognize both the obstacles to successful cooperation, and the options that remain for each side when cooperation fails.

Eyffinger, Stephens, & Muller: Self-Defence as a Fundamental Principle

Arthur Eyffinger (JUDICAP), Alan Stephens (Clemens Nathan Research Centre), & Sam Muller (Hague Institute for the Internationalisation of Law) have published Self-Defence as a Fundamental Principle (Hague Academic Press 2009). The table of contents is available here. Here's the abstract:

Within societies, on a national level, self-defence may be used as a defence against the use of force in order to prevent crime against oneself, a fellow human being or even property. Between societies on the international level, self-defence was traditionally linked to the concept of armed attack. However, in today’s world, new forms of aggression, the concept of collective security, and an increasing interaction between national and international law necessitate a reassessment of the concept of self-defence. The first session of the Hague Colloquium on the Fundamental Principles of Law, on the topic of self-defence and honouring Shabtai Rosenne, the first Laureate of the Hague Prize for International Law, brought together experts from both academic and professional circles to debate the notion of self-defence in the world of today. Both the Colloquium and this subsequent publication make a valuable contribution to the development of the law by recognising the sources of the principle of self-defence, and the theories underlying it, by following its path of evolution and by reassessing its current status. The essays are accompanied by a remarkably full and useful bibliography and by documentary materials, many of which are difficult to obtain elsewhere.