Neutrality in World History provides a cogent synthesis of five hundred years of neutrality in global history. Author Leos Müller argues that neutrality and neutral states, such as Switzerland, Sweden, Belgium have played an important historical role in implementing the free trade paradigm, shaping the laws of nations and humanitarianism, and serving as key global centers of trade and finance. Offering an intriguing alternative to dominant world history narratives, which hinge primarily on the international relations and policies of empires and global powers, Neutrality in World History provides students with a distinctive introduction to neutrality’s place in world history.

An Age of Neutrals provides a pioneering history of neutrality in Europe and the wider world between the Congress of Vienna and the outbreak of the First World War. The 'long' nineteenth century (1815–1914) was an era of unprecedented industrialization, imperialism and globalization; one which witnessed Europe's economic and political hegemony across the world. Dr Maartje Abbenhuis explores the ways in which neutrality reinforced these interconnected developments. She argues that a passive conception of neutrality has thus far prevented historians from understanding the high regard with which neutrality, as a tool of diplomacy and statecraft and as a popular ideal with numerous applications, was held. This compelling new history exposes neutrality as a vibrant and essential part of the nineteenth-century international system; a powerful instrument used by great and small powers to solve disputes, stabilize international relations and promote a variety of interests within and outside the continent.

The authors of this volume have been inspired by the scholar to which this "Liber Amicorum" is dedicated - Professor Ove Bring - to look into both the past and the future of international law. Like Ove Bring, they have dealt with many aspects of the law governing the use of force, from arms control to human rights, international criminal law, the UN Charter, and, of course, international humanitarian law. Like Professor Bring, they have allowed themselves to draw trajectories from history and into the future, and have shunned away from neither the controversial nor the speculative, be it on the Middle East, the invasion of Iraq or the independence of Kosovo. This collection brings together insights from a former UN Legal Counsel, a former Executive Chairman of UNMOVIC, present and former judges of the European Court of Justice, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, one present and one former member of the International Law Commission, as well as law professors and practitioners, from all Nordic countries, Germany and Australia. Together they form a highly challenging mosaic of perspectives on topical issues like cluster munitions, targeting, human rights in peace operations and the purposes of sentencing in international tribunals. The volume also contains a bibliography and a presentation of Professor Bring's work.

America's empire expanded dramatically following the Spanish-American War of 1898. The United States quickly annexed the Philippines and Puerto Rico, seized control over Cuba and the Panama Canal Zone, and extended political and financial power throughout Latin America. This age of empire, Benjamin Allen Coates argues, was also an age of international law. Justifying America's empire with the language of law and civilization, international lawyers-serving simultaneously as academics, leaders of the legal profession, corporate attorneys, and high-ranking government officials-became central to the conceptualization, conduct, and rationalization of US foreign policy. Just as international law shaped empire, so too did empire shape international law. Legalist Empire shows how the American Society of International Law was animated by the same notions of "civilization" that justified the expansion of empire overseas. Using the private papers and published writings of such figures as Elihu Root, John Bassett Moore, and James Brown Scott, Coates shows how the newly-created international law profession merged European influences with trends in American jurisprudence, while appealing to elite notions of order, reform, and American identity. By projecting an image of the United States as a unique force for law and civilization, legalists reconciled American exceptionalism, empire, and an international rule of law. Under their influence the nation became the world's leading advocate for the creation of an international court. Although the legalist vision of world peace through voluntary adjudication foundered in the interwar period, international lawyers-through their ideas and their presence in halls of power-continue to infuse vital debates about America's global role

In the last decade, there has been a turn to history in international humanitarian law and its accompanying fields. To examine this historization and to expand the current scope of scholarship, this book brings together scholars from various fields, including law, history, sociology, and international relations. Human rights law, international criminal law, and the law on the use of force are all explored across the text’s four main themes: historiographies of selected fields of international law; evolution of specific international humanitarian law rules in the context of legal gaps and fault lines; emotions as a factor in international law; and how actors can influence history. This work will enhance and broaden readers’ knowledge of the field and serve as an excellent starting point for further research.

This volume deals with the tension between unity and diversification which has gained a central place in the debate under the label of ‘fragmentation’. It explores the meaning, articulation and risks of this phenomenon in a specific area: International Criminal Justice. It brings together established and fresh voices who analyse different sites and contestations of this concept, as well as its context and specific manifestations in the interpretation and application of International Criminal Law. The volume thereby connects discourse on ‘fragmentation’ with broader inquiry on the merits and discontents of legal pluralism in ‘Public International Law’.