The past two hundred years have seen the transformation of public international law from a rule-based extrusion of diplomacy into a fully-fledged legal system. Landmark Cases in Public International Law examines decisions that have contributed to the development of international law into an integrated whole, whilst also creating specialised sub-systems that stand alone as units of analysis. The significance of these decisions is not taken for granted, with contributors critically interrogating the cases to determine if their reputation as 'landmarks' is deserved. Emphasis is also placed on seeing each case as a diplomatic artefact, highlighting that international law, while unquestionably a legal system, remains reliant on the practice and consent of states as the prime movers of development. The cases selected cover a broad range of subject areas including state immunity, human rights, the environment, trade and investment, international organisations, international courts and tribunals, the laws of war, international crimes, and the interface between international and municipal legal systems. A wide array of international and domestic courts are also considered, from the International Court of Justice to the European Court of Human Rights, World Trade Organization Appellate Body, US Supreme Court and other adjudicative bodies. The result is a three-dimensional picture of international law: what it was, what it is, and what it might yet become.

This book contains excerpts in extenso from leading cases in general international law, and seeks to provide a greater volume of case law than that currently available on the market. It contains no editorial commentary and no secondary literature, as these are widely available in other works. It can serve either as a principal text or as a supplement to other standard books. It is thoroughly up to date, including recent ICJ judgments on the Bosnia case, the Gavcíkovo-Nagymaros Project, the Advisory Opinion on Nuclear Weapons, and the Lockerbie case. It will be of inestimable value to all libraries of international law, large and small, institutional and private. No student or practitioner in the field should be without it.

On-going deterioration of the state of the environment and the continuous risk of an environmental disaster has forced society to reconsider its environmental and developmental objectives. For economic and environmental reasons, the costs of prevention and reparation of environmental harm should be channelled to the polluter. However, such channelling may run counter to legal principles. This work scrutinizes this field of tension between economic and legal principles at state level. It provides a unique analysis of traditional thinking on state liability for transboundary harm and the theories which have challenged it since the proliferation of hazardous activities in the 1960s. The author favours a return to traditional thinking, but has an eye for the theories that challenged it with the aim of safeguarding the compensation of victims of transboundary harm.

Analysing how arbitral tribunals have dealt with the value judgment at the core of the distinction between 'objectionable' and 'unobjectionable' treaty shopping, this book suggests how States could reform their international investment agreements in order to make them less susceptible to the practice of treaty shopping.

Oliver Dörr stellt die wichtigsten Leitentscheidungen internationaler Gerichte zum Völkerrecht im englischen Originaltext zusammen und macht sie so dem Anwender zugänglich, der nicht ständig Zugriff auf die amtliche Entscheidungssammlung hat. Durch die Sammlung von vierzig Urteilen und Gutachten des Ständigen Internationalen Gerichtshofs (1923-1933) und des Internationalen Gerichtshofs (1949-2003) entsteht ein umfassender Überblick über achtzig Jahre völkerrechtlicher Rechtsprechung und ein unverzichtbares Hilfsmittel für die Arbeit mit dem Völkerrecht. Jede Entscheidung wird nach einer kurzen Sachverhaltszusammenfassung mit geringen Kürzungen im Originaltext zitierfähig wiedergegeben. Es folgt eine `Dogmatische Einordnung¿ der Entscheidung, die ihren bis heute gültigen völkerrechtsdogmatischen Ertrag in wenigen Leitsätzen zusammenfaßt. Den Abschluß bilden jeweils einige Hinweise zur vertiefenden Lektüre.