This rich collection focuses on the broad research interests of Professor Nico Schrijver, in whose honour it was created. Written by a wide range of international scholars affiliated with Leiden University's Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies, the essays reflect Professor Schrijver's important contribution to academia and practice, particularly in the fields of sovereignty, human rights and sustainable development. The authors aim to reflect on changes in international law and on new developments in the diverse fields they explore. "Furthering frontiers" is the research theme of the Grotius Centre. Its exploration in this thought-provoking volume is a fitting homage to Nico Schrijver's achievements on the occasion of his retirement as Chair of Public International Law of Leiden University.
What role do the people play in defining and developing human rights? This volume explores the very topical issue of the lack of democratic legitimisation of national and international courts and the question of whether rendering the original process of defining human rights more democratic at the national and international level would improve the degree of protection they afford. The authors venture to raise the crucial question: When can a democratic society be considered to be mature enough so as to be trusted to provide its own definition of human rights obligations?
Responsibility to Protect: Research, bibliography, background. Supplementary volume to the Report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty
This book is devoted to the 25th anniversary of the United Nations Declaration on the Right to Development. It contains a collection of analytical studies of various aspects of the right to development, which include the rule of law and good governance, aid, trade, debt, technology transfer, intellectual property, access to medicines and climate change in the context of an enabling environment at the local, regional and international levels. It also explores the issues of poverty, women and indigenous peoples within the theme of social justice and equity. The book considers the strides that have been made over the years in measuring progress in implementing the right to development and possible ways forward to make the right to development a reality for all in an increasingly fragile, interdependent and ever-changing world.
This volume provides an innovative and engaging way of assessing the development of international law scholarship and practice to date and its potential future development by focusing upon the ‘leading works’ of the discipline. International law has established itself as an important area of academic study and legal practice. Given its academic, legal and everyday significance and its prolific role within law school teaching and research, it is important to question and analyse the development of international law, exploring the complex and shifting interplay between law, policy, theory and culture and the role of international and national actors within a diverse and dynamic community of nations. This collection presents contributions from leading scholars of public international law across the globe and the works chosen by the editor represent a diverse range of subjects within the broader discipline. Each chapter analyses the importance and legacy of a specific work, with a view to reflecting upon how that publication has contributed to shaping the broader literature in the field of international law and how it may continue to have an influence on both scholarship and practice in the future. Taken as a whole, the chapters included in this collection provide an original exploration of a variety of important themes about how the discipline has evolved over time. The Prologue and Epilogue critically assess the development of international law in light of the reflections by contributors. The book will be a valuable resource for lawyers, international law practitioners, students, and academics alike.
The international community has long grappled with the issue of safeguarding the environment and encouraging sustainable development, often with little result. The 1992 Rio Declaration on Environment and Development was an emphatic attempt to address this issue, setting down 27 key principles for the international community to follow. These principles define the rights of people to sustainable development, and the responsibilities of states to safeguard the common environment. The Rio Declaration established that long term economic progress required a connection to environmental protection. It was designed as an authoritative and comprehensive statement of the principles of sustainable development law, an instrument to take stock of the past international and domestic practice, a guide for the design of new multilateral environmental regimes, and as a reference for litigation. This commentary provides an authoritative and comprehensive overview of the principles of the Declaration, written by over thirty inter-disciplinary contributors, including both leading practitioners and academics. Each principle is analysed in light of its origins and rationale. The book investigates each principle's travaux préparatoires setting out the main points of controversy and the position of different countries or groups. It analyses the scope and dimensions of each principle, providing an in-depth understanding of its legal effects, including whether it can be relied before a domestic or international court. It also assesses the impact of the principles on subsequent soft law and treaty development, as well as domestic and international jurisprudence. The authors demonstrate the ways in which the principles interact with each other, and finally provide a detailed analysis of the shortcomings and future potential of each principle. This book will be of vital importance to practitioners, scholars, and students of international environomental law and sustainable development.
This book engages with international legal responses to the global environmental crisis. Humanity faces a triple planetary crisis, consisting of the interlinked problems of climate change, depletion of biological diversity and pollution.The chapters in this volume of the Netherlands Yearbook of International Law address important questions of how and to what extent these environmental concerns have been integrated into international law, who or what drives these developments, and what all of this tells us about international law’s ability to tackle the challenges that a deteriorating environment brings for the future of life on Earth. The strength of the volume is that it brings together a wide range of perspectives on the ‘greening’ phenomenon in international law. It includes perspectives from international environmental law, human rights law, investment law, financial law, humanitarian law and criminal law. Moreover, it raises important questions regarding the validity of the predominant approach in international law to (the protection of) nature. By providing such a wide range of perspectives on international legal responses (or lack thereof) to the environmental crisis, the volume seeks to engage scholars and practitioners from a variety of disciplines. It invites readers to compare the state-of-the-art across disciplines and to reflect on ways to strengthen international law’s responses to the environmental crisis. Furthermore, as has become standard for the Netherlands Yearbook of International Law, the second part consists of a section on Dutch practice in international law. The Netherlands Yearbook of International Law was first published in 1970. It offers a forum for the publication of scholarly articles in a varying thematic area of public international law. Chapter 3 is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.
Although the recognition of States is a common occurrence in international relations and retains a central position in discussions of international law, its nature and legal effects have remained controversial well into the twenty-first century. While some believe that recognition plays a fundamental role in the creation of statehood, others deny recognition any legal value. Regardless, debates surrounding any case where statehood is disputed will sooner or later turn to the matter of recognition, or lack thereof, by other States. This book challenges the widespread views of statehood as an absolute or empirical fact and of recognition as merely declaratory in the creation of States as the primary and original persons of international law. Drawing upon a comparative analysis of contested States ranging from Palestine and Kosovo to Somaliland and Eastern Ukraine, this book seeks to ascertain the normative value and the effects of the act of recognition in various situations, distinguishing between: cases where statehood may be inferred from applicable rules of international law, cases where statehood could only be explained by recognition, and cases where the establishment of a State is prevented by international legal norms. In addition to discussing a range of issues related to recognition, this book provides an up-to-date overview of the history of recognition, the positions of various governments, and a broad, critical summary of domestic and international jurisprudence.
