The internationalization of commerce and contemporary life has led to a globalization of legal standards and practices. The essays in this text explore this new reality and suggest ways in which the new legal order can be made more just and effective.

This book examines the institutions that are producing consumer law at the international level, the substantive issues enshrined in these laws, and the enforcement mechanisms meant to ensure effective protection. The majority of existing research is devoted to the comparative perspective, between countries or between the US and the EU. This book investigates the forceful activities of international and regional organizations, and shifts the focus of research to the internationalization of consumer law, which is largely neglected in particular in the Western-centered political and legal debate. Much of what constitutes consumer law today is focused on banking and finance, and more broadly the financialization and digitalization of the global economy, and society has created a shift in international consumer law production. This book investigates the role that international organizations have on the creation and enforcement of consumer law, and will be of interest to consumer lawyers, practitioners, and officials in organizations such as the United Nations, European Union, and World Bank.

This book provides the first comprehensive analysis of factors that transform a prima facie non-international armed conflict (NIAC) into an international armed conflict (IAC) and the consequences that follow from this process of internationalization. It examines in detail the historical development as well as the current state of the relevant rules of international humanitarian law. The discussion is grounded in general international law, complemented with abundant references to case law, and illustrated by examples from twentieth and twenty-first century armed conflicts. In Part I, the book puts forward a thorough catalogue of modalities of conflict internationalization that includes outside intervention, State dissolution, and recognition of belligerency. It then specifically considers the legal qualification of complex situations that feature more than two conflict parties and contrasts the mechanism of internationalization of armed conflicts with the reverse process of de-internationalization. Part II of the book challenges the conventional wisdom that members of non-State armed groups do not normally benefit from combatant status. It argues that the majority of fighters belonging to non-State armed groups in most types of internationalized armed conflicts are in fact eligible for combatant status. Finally, Part III turns to belligerent occupation, traditionally understood as a leading example of a notion that cannot be transposed to armed conflicts occurring in the territory of a single State. By contrast, the book argues in favour of the applicability of the law of belligerent occupation to internationalized armed conflicts.

This groundbreaking Research Handbook provides a comprehensive analysis and assessment of the impact of international law on cities. It sheds light on the growing global role of cities and makes the case for a renewed understanding of international law in the light of the urban turn.

This book challenges the idea that international law looks the same from anywhere in the world. Instead, how international lawyers understand and approach their field is often deeply influenced by the national contexts in which they lived, studied, and worked. International law in the United States and in the United Kingdom looks different compared to international law in China and Russia, though some approaches (particularly Western, Anglo-American ones) are more influential outside their borders than others. Given shifts in geopolitical power and the rise of non-Western powers like China, it is increasingly important for international lawyers to understand how others coming from diverse backgrounds approach the field. By examining the international law academies and textbooks of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, Roberts provides a window into these different communities of international lawyers, and she uncovers some of the similarities and differences in how they understand and approach international law.

By combining a method – comparative studies – with an ongoing process – the internationalization of law, that is, its extension beyond national borders – this Chair looks to the future, as uncertain as it may be. Of course current events tragically highlight the absence of a real legal world order. The collective security system of the Charter of the United Nations has shown its weaknesses and law has been unable to disarm force. Conversely, however, force cannot prevent this unprecedented extension of law, to the extent that no State can lastingly override it. In spite of appearances, it is no longer possible today to ignore the superposition of regional, national and global standards, nor the over-abundance of both national and international institutions and judges, with expanded jurisdiction. The new realities are causing law to evolve into complex and highly unstable interactive systems that are perhaps more symptomatic of profound change than of the defeat of law: we are faced with a change in the very conception of the legal order.