This collection of essays gathers contributions from leading international lawyers from different countries, generations and angles with the aim of highlighting the multifaceted history of international law. This volume questions and analyses the origins and foundations of the international legal system. A particular attention is devoted to Hugo Grotius as one of the founding fathers of the law of nations. Several contributions further question the positivist tradition initiated by Vattel and endorsed by scholars of the 19th Century. This immersion in the intellectual origins of international law is enriched by an inquiry into the practice of the law of nations, including its main patterns and changing evolution as well as the role of non-western traditions and the impact of colonization. Le présent ouvrage réunit les contributions de juristes internationaux reconnus en vue d’éclairer les multiples facettes de l’histoire du droit international public. L’ouvrage analyse et questionne les origines et les fondements de l’ordre juridique international. Une attention toute particulière est dédiée à Hugo Grotius l’un des pères fondateurs du droit international. D’autres contributions questionnent également la tradition positiviste initiée par Vattel et confortée par la doctrine du 19ème siècle. Cette immersion dans les origines doctrinales du système juridique international est enrichie par l’étude de la pratique du droit international public, son évolution ainsi que le rôle des traditions non-occidentales et l’impact de la colonisation.

This collection of essays celebrating the work of Professor Marcelo Kohen brings together the leading scholars and practitioners of public international law from different continents and generations to explore some of the most challenging issues of contemporary international law. The volume is a testimony of esteem and friendship from colleagues and former students, and it covers a vast expanse, reflecting the width and diversity of Professor Kohen’s own contribution. Written in English, French and Spanish, the essays in this volume will appeal to a broad public of academics, practitioners and students of international law from around the world.

La Commission du droit international, après avoir longuement hésité, a inscrit l’état de nécessité dans sa codification de la responsabilité des États en tant que circonstance excluant l’illicéité. L’objet de cette étude est de démontrer qu’il s’agit d’un mécanisme beaucoup plus diffus et fondamental du droit international, intimement lié à ses caractéristiques propres. Il a comme fonction la limitation des obligations substantielles des États lors de la survenance d’un fait-condition – la situation de nécessité – afin d’éviter que l’application du droit ne génère un coût social excessif. Sa réalisation requiert toujours une pondération des intérêts en conflit. Seulement lorsqu’un coût social excessif ne peut être évité, l’état de nécessité intervient dans le cadre des obligations secondaires de la responsabilité internationale, en tant que circonstance atténuante. After much hesitation, the International Law Commission codified the state of necessity as a circumstance precluding wrongfulness in the field of State responsibility. This study aims to demonstrate that it is a much wider mechanism, essential to international law and strictly connected to its own characteristics. It performs the function of limiting the substantial obligations of States in case of the realization of a fact condition – a situation of necessity – in order to avert an excessive social cost, born out of law implementation. It always works through a balance of conflicting interests. Only when a social cost cannot be avoided, the state of necessity, under the features of a mitigating circumstance, enters the field of secondary obligations relating to international responsibility.

Netherlands. Volume commemorating the 50th anniversary of the hague academy of international law and its historical evolution as an educational institution - covers research activities, enrolment patterns, administrative aspects, the organization of training courses, etc. References and statistical tables. Festschrift hague academy of international law (1923-1973).

Marke, Julius J., Editor. A Catalogue of the Law Collection at New York University With Selected Annotations. New York: The Law Center of New York University, 1953. xxxi, 1372 pp. Reprinted 1999 by The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd. LCCN 99-19939. ISBN 1-886363-91-9. Cloth. $195. * Reprint of the massive, well-annotated catalogue compiled by the librarian of the School of Law at New York University. Classifies approximately 15,000 works excluding foreign law, by Sources of the Law, History of Law and its Institutions, Public and Private Law, Comparative Law, Jurisprudence and Philosophy of Law, Political and Economic Theory, Trials, Biography, Law and Literature, Periodicals and Serials and Reference Material. With a thorough subject and author index. This reference volume will be of continuous value to the legal scholar and bibliographer, due not only to the works included but to the authoritative annotations, often citing more than one source. Besterman, A World Bibliography of Bibliographies 3461.

For many centuries, thinkers have tried to understand and to conceptualize political and legal order beyond the boundaries of sovereign territories. Their concepts, deeply entangled with ideas of theology, state formation, and human nature, form the bedrock of today's theoretical discourses on international law. This volume engages with models of early international legal thought from Machiavelli to Hegel before international law in the modern sense became an academic discipline of its own. The interplay of system and order serves as a leitmotiv throughout the book, helping to link historical models to contemporary discourse. Part I of the book covers a diverse collection of thinkers in order to scrutinize and contextualize their respective models of the international realm in light of general legal and political philosophy. Part II maps the historical development of international legal thought more generally by distilling common themes and ideas, such as the relationship between universality and particularity, the role of the state, the influence of power and economic interests on the law, and the contingencies of time, space and technical opportunities. In the current political climate, where it appears that the reinvigorated concept of the nation state as an ordering force competes with internationalist thinking, the problems at issue in the classic theories point to contemporary questions: is an international system without central power possible? How can a normative order come about if there is no central force to order relations between states? These essays show that uncovering the history of international law can offer ways in which to envisage its future.