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Over the past ten years the content and application of international law in armed conflict has changed dramatically. This Oxford Handbook provides an authoritative and comprehensive study of the role of international law in armed conflict and engages in a broad analysis of international humanitarian law, human rights law, refugee law, international criminal law, environmental law, and the law on the use of force. With an international group of expert contributors, the Handbook has a global, multi-disciplinary perspective on the place of law in war. The Handbook consists of 32 chapters in seven parts. Part I provides the historical background of international law in armed conflict and sets out its contemporary challenges. Part II considers the relevant sources of international law. Part III describes the different legal regimes: land warfare, air warfare, maritime warfare, the law of occupation, the law applicable to peace operations, and the law of neutrality. Part IV introduces crucial concepts in humanitarian law: the use of weapons, proportionality, the principle of distinction, and internal armed conflict. Part V looks at rights issues: life, torture, fair trials, the environment, economic, social and cultural rights, the protection of cultural property, and the human rights of members of the armed forces. Part VI covers key issues in times of conflict: the use of force, terrorism, unlawful combatants, mercenaries, forced migration, and issues of gender. Part VII deals with accountability for war crimes, the responsibility of non-state actors, compensation before national courts, and, finally, transitional justice.

This book collects together the most important papers of Antonio Cassese, the first President of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and chairman of the UN Commission of Inquiry into the crimes committed in Darfur. Written over a period of 25 years, from 1974 to 2001, the papers chart the development of Cassese's thought on the central issues that have shaped his life's work: the laws relating to armed conflict, respect of individual rights and the prosecution of individuals for international crimes. Emerging from the papers is Cassese's vision of the individual and human dignity as the lynchpin of the international legal system, and the need to balance the fact of statehood as an essential feature of modern international society with the protection of individual rights. In a new paper, written especially for the collection, Cassese looks back over the development of his understanding of international law and presents his current view of the issues discussed throughout the volume. The volume also features an exhaustive bibliography of Cassese's publications, and biographical notes from Cassese's colleagues. By gathering together the most important writings of one of the pre-eminent figures in contemporary international criminal justice, this collection provides not only the definitive statement of Cassese's thought, but a unique insight into some of the key developments in international law over the last quarter of the twentieth century.