Why U.S. support for international law is so inconsistent

This updated introductory textbook explores law, compliance and enforcement through chapter-length case studies of the world's most important international organizations.

The relationship between a powerful United States of America and some of the central multilateral organizations in global society is an essential feature of contemporary international relations. 'US Hegemony and International Organizations' brings together a range of leading scholars to examine this crucial phenomenon. Its aims are two-fold: to describe and explain US behaviour in and towards a wide range of significant global and regional institutions; and secondly to examine the impact of US behavior on the capacity of each organization to meet its own objectives. The study explores US behavior and its consequences for organizations based at the regional as well as the global levels, for those located in different regions of the world, and for such issue areas as security, economics, and the environment. Although focusing on the period since the 1990s, each chapter places its findings in a broader historical context.

In December 2011, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the International Law Commission's articles on the responsibility of international organizations, bringing to conclusion not only nearly ten years of reflection by the Commission, governments and organizations on this specific topic, but also decades of study of the wider subject of international responsibility, which had initially focused on State responsibility. Parallel to this reflection by the Commission, diplomats and public officials, the body of international case-law and literature on the many facets of the topic has steadily been growing. Responsibility of International Organizations: Essays in Memory of Sir Ian Brownlie contributes to the body of international literature by collecting a broad spectrum of different and sometimes differing perspectives from well-known experts in the field, ranging from the bench to the Commission, academia, and the world of in-house counsel. The book is also a memorial to the renowned Sir Ian Brownlie, himself a former Chairman of the International Law Commission who, as a leading scholar and practitioner, greatly contributed to the reflection on international responsibility, including the responsibility of international organizations. Edited by Maurizio Ragazzi, a former pupil of Sir Ian, the book is an ideal companion to International Responsibility Today, a collection of essays on international responsibility which the same editor presented in 2005 in memory of Oscar Schachter, and to which Sir Ian Brownlie had contributed. The essays collected in Responsibility of International Organizations: Essays in Memory of Sir Ian Brownlie, conveniently grouped by the editor under broad areas for the reader's benefit, will be relevant not only to all those interested in this specific subject but also, more generally, to all those engaged in the field of international law and the law of international organizations.