In a world facing major environmental crises, radical measures are increasingly called for. As a change in paradigm from our anthropocentric approach to the environment and its resources remains mostly aspirational, non-use measures present themselves as practical regulatory tools to respond to environmental degradation. This edited volume examines moratoria, bans, no-take or entry zones across regimes regulating global goods and commons. It analyses factors that have contributed to the successful adoption and implementation of non-use measures for resources in the high seas, deep seabed, atmosphere, and Antarctica. It then presents pathways for the development and adoption of further non-use measures in these areas and in outer space, before reflecting on such measures’ limitations and potential.
Despite the universal right to nationality, many nomadic peoples struggle to claim this fundamental status. International law offers solutions to combat statelessness-like birth registration-but do they work for nomadic peoples? The Nationality and Statelessness of Nomadic Peoples Under International Law delves into the nationality challenges faced by four communities: former Bedouin in Kuwait, Tuareg in Mali, Fulani in Côte d'Ivoire, and Sama Dilaut (Bajau Laut) in Malaysia.
Drawing on diverse sources from across disciplines, as well as original field research, the book traces the roots of nomadic statelessness from colonization to the present. Through a rigorous legal analysis, the book evaluates how effectively international law addresses these underlying issues and safeguards the right to nationality for those whose lifestyles transcend borders and conventional nation-state structures. Finally, the book proposes reforms to international law to better address the needs of nomadic peoples regarding nationality and citizenship.
The latest issue of the Review of International Organizations (Vol. 20, no. 3, September 2025) is out. Contents include:
The latest issue of the European Journal of International Law (Vol. 36, no. 2, May 2025) is out. Contents include:
How and why did the European Convention turn from a neglected legal tool into one of the most important human rights documents in legal practice? This book argues this remarkable development wasn't merely the result of a top-down movement initiated by the European Court, but of a far more dynamic process in which the national and European spheres engaged in constant co-creation. Focusing on the Netherlands and uncovering little known archival sources, it lays bare how the Convention was received over time throughout the entire Kingdom. In doing so, it incorporates insight into how European human rights were perceived in Europe and beyond. A much more varied story comes to light in which contingency and interaction take centre stage, and which uncovers the choices that continue to shape the character of the Convention as we know it today.
Some positive developments in international law had humble beginnings. They started from a small group of idealists who wanted to change the world for the better. Once their ideas gathered momentum, they got the support of people with power and transformed the world. State after state followed each other in a cascade toward improving international law. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the conditions that are beneficial for the initial germination of ideas with the potential to positively revolutionize international law. By using a series of case studies focused on the initiation of major transformations that improved international law, the paper attempts to recommend how national and international settings need to be arranged to support such transformations.
How should the Arctic be viewed in the 21st century? In this book, a leading commentator assesses the competing players for the Arctic, looking at broad questions of governance and security.
The author challenges the view that the Arctic is a passive space which is the focus of competitive advances from superpowers, arguing that it is more correctly understood as a dynamic pluriverse. Drawing on international law, international relations and diplomacy, this is an important re-assessment of the Arctic and its position in geo-politics.
The latest issue of the Asian Journal of International Law (Vol. 15, no. 2, July 2025) is out. Contents include:
The Cpdification Division also added translations, in the six official languages of the United Nations, of the Introductory Notes on the 1999 International Convention on Arrest of Ships, written by Mahin Faghfouri, and the 1926 Slavery Convention, written by Jean Allain; as well as translations of the Procedural History of the 1981 Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief.
How does international law entitle individuals to challenge violations of international law before domestic courts? Developing the novel concept of access rights, Leander Beinlich takes a thorough look at the domestic adjudication of international law through the lens of individual rights.
Beinlich provides an in-depth survey of the main access rights: the right to a remedy and the right of access to a court. In an unprecedented analysis, he applies his findings to cases of external state action such as military operations abroad, a domain traditionally characterized by accountability gaps. Access to Domestic Justice for Violations of International Law presents crucial insights into the value, risks and limitations of individual rights at the intersection of international law and foreign relations law. It demonstrates how access rights put to a test the doctrinal hurdles and normative concerns impeding access to justice in this area, paving the way for further research.
The international order that has defined the post-World War II period is being radically transformed, presenting a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reconstitute its basic foundations. The pressing questions for international lawyers are about what roles their enterprise can and should play going forward. I argue in this Article that most lack the analytic framework they need even to begin tackling these questions. Worse, most seem mired in an old theory about law that corrupts how they approach their enterprise. My goals in the Article are to expose the prevalence of this bad theory and to present the grounds for discarding it, so that we can think more clearly about the situation that we now confront and what might realistically come next.
The bad theory is sovereigntist in orientation. It establishes three conditions for law—one for law’s existence, a second for law’s efficacy, and a third for law’s justifiability—that only a fantastical sovereign, with both absolute authority in law and monopolistic control over the levers of coercion, could satisfy. Though few international lawyers subscribe to this sovereigntist theory in its classical and most extreme variant, the theory’s core commitments remain deeply entrenched in the field. Those who approach international law from otherwise distinct analytic traditions—what I will call “formalist,” “constructivist,” “realist,” “rational,” and “critical”—widely converge on, or at least have not managed to escape, this timeworn theory.
After exposing the extent to which the sovereigntist theory permeates the field, I explain what it gets wrong and how to move past it. In short, international law cannot, does not, and should not work in the way that the sovereigntist theory insists that law must. International law works differently from that. And though it, like all law, has inherent limitations, we cannot even begin to analyze it as a social phenomenon, nor identify its problems and possibilities, nor navigate the coming future, with a theory that insists that it must work as it cannot.
The latest issue of the Harvard International Law Journal (Vol. 66, no. 1, Winter 2025) is out. Contents include:
