Non-State Actors and International Obligations examines the contribution and relevance of non-state actors in the creation and implementation of international obligations. These actors have traditionally been marginalised within international law and ambiguities remain over their precise role. Nonetheless, they have become increasingly important in legal regimes as participants in their implementation and enforcement, and as potential holders of duties themselves. Chapters from academics and practitioners investigate different aspects of this relationship, including the sources of obligations, their implementation, human rights aspects, dispute settlement, responsibility and legal accountability.

1. Introduction 2. Participants in International Law-making 3. Multilateral Law-making Processes 4. Codification and Progressive Development of International law 5. Law-making Instruments 6. The Role of Courts.

This collection of essays provides a comprehensive study of the theory and practice on the contribution of international organisations and non-state actors to the formation of customary international law. It offers new practical and theoretical perspectives on one of the most complex questions about the making of international law, namely the possibility that actors other than states contribute to the making of customary international law. Notwithstanding the completion by the International Law Commission of its work on the identification of customary international law, the making of customary international law remains riddled with acute practical and theoretical controversies that continue to be intensively debated. Making extensive reference to the case-law of international law courts and tribunals while also engaging with the most recent scholarly work on customary international law, this new volume provides innovative tools and guidance to legal scholars, researcher in law, law students, lecturers in law, practitioners, legal advisers, judges, arbitrators, and counsels as well as tools to address contemporary questions of international law-making. This volume includes a contribution by Michael Wood, the Special Rapporteur of the International Law Commission on the identification of customary international law, a contribution by Iris Müller, legal advisor of the International Committee of the Red Cross, as well as chapters from some of the most authoritative and established experts on the sources of international law.

The role and position of non-state actors in international law is the subject of a long-standing and intensive scholarly debate. This book explores the participation of this new category of actors in an international legal system that has historically been dominated by states. It explores the most important issues, actors and theoretical approaches with respect to these new participants in international law. It provides the reader with a comprehensive and state-of-the-art overview of the most important legal and political developments and perspectives. Relevant non-state actors discussed in this volume include, in particular, international governmental organisations, international non-governmental organisations, multinational companies, investors and armed opposition groups. Their legal position is considered in relation to specific issue-areas, such as humanitarian law, human rights, the use of force and international responsibility. The main legal theories on non-state actors' position in international law – neo-positivism, the policy-oriented approach and transnational law – are covered at the beginning of the book, and the essential political science perspectives – on non-state actors' role in international politics and globalisation, as well as their soft power – are presented at the end.

The book comprehensively discusses legal and political issues of non-recognized entities in the context of international and European Law, combining perspectives of international and European law with those of the non-recognized entities themselves.

"The 15 essays in this book began as papers presented at the Seventh Four Societies Conference hosted at Waseda University, Tokyo, in June 2018, by the Japanese Society of International Law (JSIL). The 'Four Societies' conferences are a collaborative initiative of the American Society of International Law (asil), the Australian New Zealand Society of International Law (ANZSIL), the Canadian Council on International Law (CCIL) and JSIL. The biannual conferences, which began in 2006, provide an opportunity for emerging scholars to foster a collaborative network around a common theme"--

Non-state law is playing an increasing role in both public and private ordering. Numerous organizations have emerged alongside the nation-state, each purporting to provide their members with rules and norms to govern their conduct and organize their affairs. The nation-state increasingly finds itself sandwiched, between two broad and contrasting categories of non-state law. The first - law above the state - captures legal systems that function across the territorial borders of nation-states. The second category - law below the state - includes forms of local customary, religious, and indigenous law. As these forms of non-state law persist and proliferate alongside the nation-state, the relationship between state and non-state law becomes more complex, multifaceted, and tense. This volume addresses this relationship considering whether and to what extent state and non-state law can coexist and how each form of law seeks to influence as well as transform the other.