An exploration of human choice in international legal and political decision making that investigates the neurobiology of choice and the history of how it has affected international peace and security.
Human Choice in International Law is an exploration of human choice in international legal and political decision making. This book investigates the neurobiology of how people choose and the history of how personal choice has affected decisions about international peace and security. It charts important decision moments in international law about genocide, intervention into armed conflict and nuclear weapons at the central institutions of the international legal order. Professor Spain Bradley analyzes the role that particular individuals, serving as international judges or Security Council representatives, play in shaping decision outcomes and then applies insights from neuroscience to assert the importance of analyzing how cognitive processes such as empathy, emotion and bias can influence such decisionmakers. Drawing upon historical accounts and personal interviews, this book reveals the beauty and struggle of human influences that shape the creation and practice of international law.
Filling a conspicuous gap in the legal literature, Andrew T. Guzman's How International Law Works develops a coherent theory of international law and applies that theory to the primary sources of law, treaties, customary international law, and soft law. Starting where most non-specialists start, Guzman looks at how a legal system without enforcement tools can succeed. If international law is not enforced through coercive tools, how is it enforced at all? And why would states comply with it?--Publisher.
International law is much debated and discussed, but poorly understood. Does international law matter, or do states regularly violate it with impunity? If international law is of no importance, then why do states devote so much energy to negotiating treaties and providing legal defenses for their actions? In turn, if international law does matter, why does it reflect the interests of powerful states, why does it change so often, and why are violations of international law usually not punished? In this book, Jack Goldsmith and Eric Posner argue that international law matters but that it is less powerful and less significant than public officials, legal experts, and the media believe. International law, they contend, is simply a product of states pursuing their interests on the international stage. It does not pull states towards compliance contrary to their interests, and the possibilities for what it can achieve are limited. It follows that many global problems are simply unsolvable. The book has important implications for debates about the role of international law in the foreign policy of the United States and other nations. The authors see international law as an instrument for advancing national policy, but one that is precarious and delicate, constantly changing in unpredictable ways based on non-legal changes in international politics. They believe that efforts to replace international politics with international law rest on unjustified optimism about international law's past accomplishments and present capacities.
Throughout his career, Michael Reisman emphasized law’s function in shaping the future. In this wide-ranging collection of essays, major thinkers in the international legal field address the goals of the twenty-first century and how international law can address the needs of the world community.
Beyond Human Rights, previously published in German and now available in English, is a historical and doctrinal study about the legal status of individuals in international law.
Commentary on the international law of human rights - covers civil rights, economic and social rights, right to work, freedom of thought, cultural rights, freedom of association, etc; outlines the historical background; includes texts of treatys and judicial decisions. References.
This unique book brings together leading experts from diverse areas of public international law to offer a comprehensive overview of the approaches to evolutionary interpretation in different international legal regimes. It begins by asking what interpretation is, offering the views of expert authors on the question, its components and definitions. It then comments on situations that have called for evolutionary interpretation in different international legal regimes, including general international law, environmental law, human rights law, EU law, investment law, international trade law, and how domestic courts have, on occasions, interpreted treaties and other international legal instruments in an evolutionary manner. This timely, authoritative compendium offers an in-depth understanding of the processes at work in evolutionary interpretation as well as a prime selection of the current trends and future challenges.