This pioneering Research Handbook provides an in-depth scholarly overview of the field of soft law, exploring the scope of current thinking in the field as well as proposing future pathways for soft law research. Through theoretical and empirical analyses by established voices in the field, the Research Handbook offers important insights and much-needed clarity into the dynamic and complex nature of soft law. This title contains one or more Open Access chapters.

The editors’ substantive introduction and the specially commissioned chapters in the Handbook explore the emergence of transnational labour law as a field, along with its contested contours. The expansion of traditional legal methods, such as treaties, is juxtaposed with the proliferation of contemporary alternatives such as indicators, framework agreements and consumer-led initiatives. Key international and regional institutions are studied for their coverage of such classic topics as freedom of association, equality, and sectoral labour standard-setting, as well as for the space they provide for dialogue. The volume underscores transnational labour law’s capacity to build bridges, including on migration, climate change and development.

This illuminating Research Handbook analyses the role that emotions play and ought to play in legal reasoning and practice, rejecting the simplistic distinction between reason and emotion.

The effect of Globalization on health has attracted the attention of scholars and policy makers across multiple disciplines. A key concern is the regulation of international health protection, and in particular the use of international health instruments and the complex interaction between international law and health considerations. For the first time, a group of law and policy scholars have analysed these issues, drawing on knowledge from their respective fields. The resulting book provides comprehensive coverage of contemporary issues in global health law and governance.

This timely Research Handbook examines the increasingly economically vital topic of corporate restructuring. Reflecting a shift in the global approach to insolvency towards a focus on rescuing viable businesses rather than liquidation, chapters consider all areas of the law closely connected to corporate insolvency, rehabilitation and rescue, as well as the introduction of the EU Preventive Restructuring Directive and other reforms from around the world.

Inquisitive and diverse, this innovative Research Handbook explores the ways in which human rights apply to people at work, through national constitutional provisions, judicial decisions and the application of rights expressed in supranational instruments. Key topics include evaluation of the role of the ILO in developing and promoting internationally recognized labour rights, and the examination of the meaning of the obligation of business to respect human rights, considering the evolution from international soft law to incorporation in codes of conduct and the emerging requirement of due diligence.

This important book examines the development of soft law instruments in international investment law and the feasibility of a 'codification' of the present state of this field of international economic law. It draws together the views of international experts on the use of soft law in international law generally and in discrete fields such as WTO, commercial, and environmental law. The book assesses whether investment law has sufficiently coalesced over the last 50 years to be 'codified' and focuses particularly on topical issues such as most-favoured-nation treatment and expropriation. This timely book will appeal to academics interested in the development of international law and legal theory, to those working in investment law, Government investment treaty negotiators and arbitration practitioners.