In recent decades there has been a considerable growth in the activities of international tribunals and the establishment of new tribunals. Furthermore, supervisory bodies established to control compliance with treaty obligations have adopted decisions in an increasing number of cases. National courts further add to the practice of adjudication of claims based on international law. While this increasing practice of courts and supervisory bodies strengthens the adjudicatory process in international law, it also poses challenges to the unity of international law. Most of these courts operate within their own special regime (functional, regional, or national) and will primarily interpret and apply international law within the framework of that particular regime. The role of domestic courts poses special challenges, as the powers of such courts to give effect to international law, as well as their actual practice in applying such law, largely will be determined by national law. At the same time, both international and national courts have recognised that they do not operate in isolation from the larger international legal system, and have found various ways to counteract the process of fragmentation that may result from their jurisdictional limitations. This book explores how international and national courts can, and do, mitigate fragmentation of international law. It contains case studies from international regimes (including the WTO, the IMF, investment arbitration and the ECtHR) and from various national jurisdictions (including Japan, Norway, Switzerland and the UK), providing a basis for conclusions to be drawn in the final chapter.

Exploring the role of the International Court of Justice in the re-convergence of international law, this book contends that the court's jurisprudence is transforming traditional concepts such as sovereignty, rights and jurisdiction and in so doing is leading a trend towards the reunification of international law.

This major extension of existing scholarship on the fragmentation of international law utilises the concept of 'regimes' from international law and international relations literature to define functional areas such as human rights or trade law. Responding to existing approaches, which focus on the resolution of conflicting norms between regimes, it contains a variety of critical, sociological and doctrinal perspectives on regime interaction. Leading international law scholars and practitioners reflect on how, in situations of diversity and concurrent activity, such interaction shapes and controls knowledge and norms in often hegemonic ways. The contributors draw on topical examples of interacting regimes, including climate, trade and investment regimes, to argue for new methods of regime interaction. Together, the essays combine approaches from international, transnational and comparative constitutional law to provide important insights into an issue that continues to challenge international legal theory and practice.

Beginning about a century ago, but with a dramatic acceleration of the process in the final decades of the 1900s, international courts and tribunals have taken a prominent place in the enforcement of international law, the maintenance of international peace and security and the protection and promotion of human rights. This book addresses the great diversity of these institutions, their structures and legal frameworks and their contribution to the international rule of law.

In The Right to Food and the World Trade Organization’s Rules on Agriculture: Conflicting, Compatible, or Complementary?, Rhonda Ferguson explores the relationship between the human right to food and agricultural trade rules. She questions whether States can adhere to their obligations under both regimes simultaneously. These two regimes are frequently portrayed to be in tension with one another. The content and contours of the right to food under international human rights law and WTO rules on domestic supports, export subsidies, and market access are considered through the lens of norm conflict theories. The analysis is situated within the context of the debate surrounding the fragmentation of international law.

A concise, intellectually rigorous and politically and theoretically informed introduction to the context, grammar, techniques and projects of international law.