While some have argued that neutrality has become irrelevant, this volume asserts that neutrality continues to be a key concept of the law of armed conflict. Neutrality in Contemporary International Law details the rights and duties of neutral states and demonstrates how the rules of neutrality continue to apply in modern day conflicts.

Neutrality is a legal relationship between a belligerent State and a State not participating in a war, namely a neutral State. The law of neutrality is a body of rules and principles that regulates the legal relations of neutrality. The law of neutrality obliges neutral States to treat all belligerent States impartially and to abstain from providing military and other assistance to belligerents. The law of neutrality is a branch of international law that developed in the nineteenth century, when international law allowed unlimited freedom of sovereign States to resort to war. Thus, there has been much debate as to whether such a branch of law remains valid in modern international law, which generally prohibits war and the use of force by States. While there has been much debate regarding the current status of neutrality in modern international law, there is a general agreement among scholars as to the basic features of the traditional law of neutrality. Wani challenges the conventional understanding of the traditional neutrality by re-examining the historical development of the law of neutrality from the sixteenth century to 1945. The modification of the conventional understanding will provide a fundamentally new framework for discussing the current status of neutrality in modern international law.

This book offers the most authoritative commentary and analysis of international humanitarian law applicable in armed conflict available. It is based upon the Joint Service Regulation for the German Ministry of Defence, augmented with extensive international references, and accompanied bycommentary by a team of distinguished and internationally renowned experts. Whilst the past decades have seen consistent development of international law applicable in armed conflict, culminating in a series of International Covenants and Protocols, world events in recent years have made reassessment of the law both a timely and topical concern. This Handbook available for the first time in paperback will serve as an indispensable reference source for practising lawyers and academics working in the field of international humanitarian law and for military personnel worldwide.

This book brings together twelve of the most important legal philosophers in the Anglo-American and Civil Law traditions. The book is a collection of the papers these philosophers presented at the Conference on Neutrality and Theory of Law, held at the University of Girona, in May 2010. The central question that the conference and this collection seek to answer is: Can a theory of law be neutral? The book covers most of the main jurisprudential debates. It presents an overall discussion of the connection between law and morals, and the possibility of determining the content of law without appealing to any normative argument. It examines the type of project currently being held by jurisprudential scholarship. It studies the different approaches to theorizing about the nature or concept of law, the role of conceptual analysis and the essential features of law. Moreover, it sheds some light on what can be learned from studying the non-essential features of law. Finally, it analyzes the nature of legal statements and their truth values. This book takes the reader a step further to understanding law.

A detailed and highly authoritative critical commentary appraising the vitally important United States Department of Defense Law of War Manual.

Revisits the law of neutrality and discusses its relevance to contemporary international and non-international armed conflict.

1 Hardcover Volume. The Rights and Duties of Neutrals is the first English-language book to survey the history of the law of neutrality from its medieval roots to the present day. The theme is the eternal clash between the rights of neutrals and belligerents - between the right of belligerents to defeat their enemies, and the right of neutrals to trade freely with all parties. Over the centuries, belligerent powers have devised various legal means of restricting neutrals from trading with their enemies, such as the law of blockade and contraband carriage. At the same time/ neutral traders have done their best to evade and circumvent these restrictions. This book traces the evolution of state practice, together with the debates over the relevant doctrinal issues and the various attempts to reform and codify the law of neutrality.This previously untold story will be of interest to anyone interested in the history of warfare or in issues of justice between nations in time of war. Technical legal language is minimised to ensure that this history is accessible to general readers as well as to professional lawyers.