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This chapter analyses the enforcement of international law by States acting individually, that is, decentralized enforcement, including by their courts, as well as through retortion or countermeasures (once called reprisals). This is the typical form of enforcement under traditional international law. At the same time, enforcement might take place through measures taken by States acting collectively, that is, through mechanisms that include resort to collective measures, such as those adopted at the UN level (or within other international organizations), which can lead to collective sanctions. The first form of enforcement looks at the traditional law governing retortion and reprisals or countermeasures (as they are now called), as well as at the post-1945 law, taking into account that the ban on the use of armed force in international relations imposes that all enforcement measures taken by States individually must be peaceful. The second form examines the issue of collective sanctions, such as those taken at UN level.

This chapter introduces the main features of the international legal system, including the nature of international legal subjects, the lack of a central authority (and the resulting decentralization of legal ‘functions’), collective responsibility, the need for most international rules to be translated into national legislation, the range of States’ freedom of action, the overriding role of effectiveness, traditional and individualistic trends and emerging community obligations and rights, and the coexistence of the old and new patterns. These features provide a general preview of the more detailed and technical discussion of international legal rules and institutions undertaken in subsequent chapters.

This chapter deals with some fundamental realities of international law as a body of legal rules which traditionally requires implementation at domestic level through transposal. In so doing it discusses the traditional theoretical distinction between monism and dualism, as abstract approaches to the relationship between domestic and international legal order. It then tackles the issue of the effects (including direct effects) that international law may have in concrete situations within national systems, as a consequence of, or, in some instances even irrespective of, transposal through national legislation. Thirdly, the chapter discusses the ‘verticalization’ of the international legal order with the affirmation in the second half of the twentieth century of the notion of jus cogens (or peremptory norms) and the effects this has (or might have) within international law and in its relationships with municipal laws.

A corollary of the obligation to respect the sovereignty of other States is the recognition of the immunities of States and State officials. This chapter examines the immunities enjoyed by States from the jurisdiction of foreign courts and from execution proceedings against their property and assets. The discussion addresses the issue in general terms and then specifically tackles two issues of significant practical importance, namely the operation of State immunity in employment disputes and in cases where violations of peremptory norms are at stake. It also analyses the functional and personal immunities of certain types of State official, namely diplomatic and consular agents, as well as high-ranking officials, such as Heads of State and Government and Ministers of Foreign Affairs.

The most frequent means of creating international rules is the conclusion of agreements. These are also called treaties, conventions, protocols, covenants, ‘acts’, etc. The terminology varies but the substance is the same: they all denote a merger of the wills of two or more international subjects for the purpose of regulating their interests by international rules. This chapter discusses the notion and types of treaty, the making of treaties, reservations, grounds of invalidity, interpretation, and termination in light of the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, which is one of the prominent achievements of the ILC for the codification and progressive development of international law.

This chapter begins with an overview of international crimes, namely, offences entailing the personal criminal liability of the individuals concerned (as opposed to the responsibility of the State) under international law. International crimes include war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, torture, aggression, and terrorism. The discussion then turns to the prosecution and punishment by State courts, focusing on the grounds of criminal jurisdiction and in particular universal criminal jurisdiction. It ends with an overview of the prosecution and punishment by international criminal courts and tribunals, with an emphasis on the International Criminal Court, and with an assessment of the main problems besetting international criminal proceedings.

This chapter focuses on international environmental law. First, it covers certain old precedents and then examines the emergence and consolidation of environmental principles between 1972 and 2020, with particular attention to the emergence of customary international law norms (prevention, co-operation, environmental impact assessment) in this area. Secondly, it surveys the substance of international environmental law, focusing on climate change as a prominent illustration of law-making in this field, and examining compliance procedures, as developed since the end of the 1980s. Thirdly, it discusses the operation of State responsibility and civil liability mechanisms for environmental harm.

This chapter discusses the fundamental principles governing international relations. The principles represent the fundamental set of standards on which States are united and which allow a degree of relatively smooth international dealings. They make up the apex of the whole body of international legislation. They constitute overriding legal standards that may be regarded as the constitutional principles of the international community. These principles are: the sovereign equality of States; the principle of non-intervention in internal affairs; the prohibition of the threat or use of force; peaceful settlement of international disputes; the duty to co-operate; the principle of good faith; self-determination of peoples; respect for human rights; and the prevention of significant environmental harm. The discussions then turn to the distinguishing traits of the fundamental principles and the close link between the principles and the need for their co-ordination.

This chapter discusses the legal personality under international law of a broad range of legal subjects other than States and international organizations, particularly individuals, peoples, and national liberation movements, as well as insurgents and a few other sui generis entities (including transnational corporations and non-governmental organizations). While insurgents, like States and some of the sui generis entities (the Holy See, the Sovereign Order of Malta, or the International Committee of the Red Cross), constitute traditional subjects of international law, the other categories emerged in the aftermath of the Second World War. The chapter also tackles the issue of which international rules apply to all these diverse entities and to what extent they participate in international dealings.

This book provides an authoritative account of international law. It preserves and extends Antonio Cassese’s exceptional combination of a historically informed, conceptually strong, and practice-infused analysis of international law, comparing the treatment of most issues in classical international law with the main subsequent developments of this constantly evolving field. Part I of the book covers the origins and foundations of the international community. Part II is about the subjects of the international community, including States, international organizations, individuals, and other international legal subjects. Part III examines the main processes of international law-making and the normative interactions between different norms, of both domestic and international law. Part IV studies the mechanisms of implementation of international law, including State responsibility, diplomatic and judicial means of dispute settlement, and enforcement mechanisms. Part V covers a number of areas which have undergone particular development and reached a high level of specialization, namely, UN law, the law governing the use of force, international humanitarian law, international human rights law, international criminal law, international environmental law, and international economic law (trade and investment).

This chapter examines the historical development and contemporary operation of the international law of armed conflict. It begins with a discussion of the historical development of this body of law, from the Hague Conventions to the Geneva Conventions and the two 1977 Additional Protocols, to the contemporary relation between international humanitarian law and human rights law, particularly in the field of targeting and detention of members in non-international armed conflicts. It then analyses the status of lawful combatants in international armed conflicts and the question of membership of non-State armed groups, as well as the notion of direct participation in hostilities and ‘unlawful combatants’. It then turns to the restrictions on the use of force based on the principles of distinction and proportionality, the choice of weapons, the protection of war victims, and some compliance mechanisms.

Custom and treaties constitute the two most important formal sources of international law, that are also envisaged in Article 38 of the ICJ Statute. In addition, Article 38 refers to general principles of law recognized in domestic systems. This chapter examines these three formal sources of international law as well as some others, in particular unilateral acts of States and binding decisions of international organizations. In addition, it discusses equity and soft law and examines some mechanisms of identification and development of international law, such as jurisprudence, doctrine, and codification.

This chapter surveys the process of emergence of human rights law in the post-1945 era, focusing on the major milestones, the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the two 1966 International Covenants, and the establishment of several regional mechanisms in Europe, the Americas, and Africa. It emphasizes the tension between traditional international law and the development of human rights as a ground-breaking doctrine after the Second World War. In essence the human rights doctrines force States to give account of how they treat all individuals, including their nationals; this make States accountable for how they administer justice, run prisons, and so on. Potentially, it can subvert their domestic orders and requires them to adhere to minimum standards agreed at international level. As a further consequence, human rights doctrines have altered the traditional configuration of the international community as driven only by the interests of States.

This chapter discusses the historical development and contemporary operation of international economic law, with a focus on trade, development, and monetary and investment relations. It pays particular attention to the emergence of the system with the 1944 Bretton Woods Conferences establishing the IMF and the World Bank, the adoption of the GATT in 1947, the revindications and influence of developing countries on the evolution of the system (with the declaration of a New International Economic Order), and the contemporary law of international trade (under the World Trade Organization) and foreign investment transactions (under investment agreements protected by investment arbitration organized under the ICSID).

This chapter focuses on the State as the primary subject of international law. It begins with a discussion of the continuing pre-eminence of States as pivotal subjects of the international legal system and then analyses the processes through which States are created; the role of recognition of States, particularly in the context of contested Statehood; the legal rules governing the continuity, succession, and extinction of States; and the evolving concept of sovereignty, which is a notion at the very core of what a State is. The chapter is intended to introduce the main legal aspects of ‘Statehood’, as a first step in the discussion of more advanced concepts in subsequent chapters, such as the State’s spatial dimensions, its immunities and those of State officials, and the many limitations imposed by international law on State action.

The Cold War era prevented the UN Security Council from using most of the powers provided for by the UN Charter, including adopting measures under Chapter VII (the so-called ‘collective security system’ which provides for measures ranging from sanctions to the use of armed force) for events deemed (by the Security Council) to be threats to the peace, breaches of the peace, or acts of aggression. However, the end of the Cold War enabled the Security Council to take some of the measures short of force envisaged in Article 41 and to interpret creatively the provisions of the Charter so as to authorize enforcement action through the use of armed force by individual States or coalitions of States. This chapter discusses measures short of armed force; peacekeeping operations; resort to force by States, as well as regional and other organizations, upon authorization of the Security Council; the special case of authorization to use force given by the General Assembly; as well as the right to self-defence and the various situations in which armed force has been used unilaterally by States.

This chapter discusses the role of the United Nations (UN), covering the grand design of the post-Second World War period, the ideals of the primacy of international law, the goals and structure of the new organization, the principal achievements and failures, and the current role of the UN, particularly in light of the adoption in 2015 of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)—a new Agenda in which all UN goals tend to come together. The chapter describes the functions and roles of the principal organs of the UN and the interplay between them. It argues that since the UN came into existence it has often failed in three areas: maintenance of peace and security, disarmament, and bridging the gap between industrialized and developing countries. On the other hand, progress was made in the area of self-determination of peoples and in promoting human rights, while in the area of economic co-operation, despite some progress, much more remains to be done. However, for all its deficiencies and in spite of the lack of vision of some of its Secretaries-General, the primary failings of the UN must be traced back to the States behind it, chiefly the Great Powers.

This chapter traces the historical evolution of the international legal system, which is organized for analytical purposes in four major stages: from its gradual emergence (sixteenth–early seventeenth century) to the First World War; from the establishment of the League of Nations to the end of the Second World War (1919–1945); from the establishment of the United Nations to the end of the Cold War (1945–1989); and the last three decades since the end of the Cold War (1990–2020). The chapter emphasizes the European roots of international law but also the pressure it has faced since the 1960s to reflect the interests of developing and newly independent States. It also provides some basic historical elements and references to the growing literature on the history of international law, which are useful to understand the historical context of the material examined in subsequent chapters.

This chapter discusses the international legal personality of international organizations, illustrating the origins of the phenomenon, the evolution of such organizations over time, and the different types of organization. It goes on to consider the source and scope of their status and powers within the international legal order, inter alia, by focusing on the principle of speciality (or conferral) and the theory of implied powers. The chapter then deals with the problem of the recognition of immunities of international organizations and their personnel, as well as with the debate surrounding the rules which relate to their responsibility under international law.

The general obligation of peaceful settlement of disputes complementing the general ban on the use or threat of force prompted States to revitalize and strengthen the traditional means for settling disputes and establish innovative and flexible mechanisms for preventing disputes or, more generally, inducing compliance with international law. This chapter discusses the so-called diplomatic mechanisms for promoting agreement between disputants, the so-called judicial means (arbitration and adjudication), and the interplay between them. The chapter further examines the establishment of more flexible mechanisms for either preventing or settling disputes, in particular non-compliance and supervisory procedures.

The email exchange between Andrew Clapham and Paola Gaeta set forth in this chapter offers a snapshot of an argument over whether states parties to the Torture Convention are obliged to criminalise in domestic law the crime of torture as such. It goes on to explore what are the pros and cons of demanding that torture requires the involvement of a ‘state official’ and whether states can ‘gold-plate’ their definition of torture in domestic law, thus extending the crime into the private sphere. In the end, this is a discussion about the very nature of torture, or if you like, torture’s ‘quintessence’.

The issue of the exercise of the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) jurisdiction over sitting heads of state is one of the major bones of contention in the tense relationship between the ICC and Africa. Legally, the disagreement revolves around the interpretation of the two rules of the Rome Statute, that is, article 27(2) and article 98(1), concerning the personal immunities. The Al Bashir and Kenyatta cases constitute the litmus test with which the analysis of these rules of the Rome Statute can be carried out to clarify the scope and purport of these two provisions. The Al Bashir case raises two different issues: (i) whether the same immunities preclude the ICC from exercising its adjudicatory jurisdiction over a sitting head of state of a non-member state; (ii) if this is not the case, whether the ICC member states are obliged under the Rome Statute to execute the request by the ICC to arrest and surrender him.

This article discusses whether the International Criminal Court (ICC) has lawfully issued and circulated an arrest warrant against the incumbent head of state of Sudan, Omar al Bashir, and whether its request to the states parties to the Rome Statute to arrest and surrender him is in conformity with the provisions of the Statute. In this article, the argument is made that the rules of customary international law on personal immunities of incumbent heads of state do not apply in the case of the exercise of criminal jurisdiction by an international criminal court; therefore they do not bar the exercise of the jurisdiction of the ICC with respect to an incumbent head of state, even if this individual comes from a state not party to the Rome Statute, like Sudan. However, it is one thing to assert that an international criminal court can ‘lawfully’ issue and circulate an arrest warrant against individuals entitled to personal immunity before national courts, and quite another to say that states can ‘lawfully’ disregard the personal immunity of these same individuals, and surrender them to the requesting international court. This article endeavours to demonstrate that while the ICC arrest warrant is a lawful coercive act against an incumbent head of state, the ICC request to states parties to surrender President Al Bashir is contrary to Article 98(1) of the Rome Statute and it is an act ultra vires. States parties are therefore not bound to comply with this request.

One feature of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (‘STL’) differentiating it from other international criminal tribunals (except for the Nuremberg International Military Tribunal) is that its Statute allows for trials in absentia. The Statute permits such trials when an accused failed to appear in court or even to appoint a defence lawyer, but only on the condition that, where the indictment could not be served or notified to the accused, it was duly publicized through the media or communicated to the state of residence or nationality of the accused. Following the case law of the European Court of Human Rights, Article 22(3) of the STL Statute allows for retrial, except where an absent defendant was represented at trial by counsel of his or her own choosing. The author argues this right to retrial should not be applied either where (i) the accused expressly waived in writing his right to be present, but then failed to appoint counsel of his choosing; or (ii) a state's failure to hand the accused over to the STL does not cure the accused's refusal to voluntarily surrender to the STL. She also argues that the right of retrial following trials in absentia ought to accrue to Lebanese courts, notwithstanding Article 5(1) of the Statute, which seems to prohibit Lebanese courts retrying individuals convicted by the STL. Finally, she takes into account the position of states that prohibit trials in absentia, but are requested to surrender a person convicted in absentia by the STL for the purpose of executing his sentence, suggesting an ad hoc agreement between the state in question and the STL may be required as a remedy.

This symposium comprises the contributions presented by five distinguished international lawyers at the European University Institute in Florence in October 2008 on a very special occasion. Antonio Cassese ("Nino" to his friends and colleagues) had recently celebrated his 70th birthday and, as is customary in many European countries, a group of his former students and friends chose this occasion to celebrate his academic and professional career with the publication of a selection of his most important writings on the three branches of public international law he has most influenced - international humanitarian law, international human rights law, and international criminal law. The outcome was a book, The Human Dimension of International Law, published in summer 2008 by Oxford University Press, the intention of which is to shed light on Nino's intellectual approach to these three areas of public international law. The publication of this volume also provided an excellent occasion to convene a small number of friends and colleagues as a token of appreciation and admiration for his many achievements as an international lawyer. As Nino shies away from any personal limelight (indeed, I am certain he will be troubled by these few lines about him), it was decided that this meeting at the �

This paper endeavours to critically assess Article 33 of the Statute of the International Criminal Court on superior orders by comparing it with customary international law. The author notes that case law and the legal literature have never clarified the content of the customary rule on this matter. Two apparently conflicting approaches have emerged. The conditional liability approach, generally adopted by national legal systems, admits the plea as a complete defence, unless the subordinate knew or should have known the illegality of the order or unless the order was manifestly illegal. By contrast, relevant international instruments prior to the Rome Statute have invariably taken the absolute liability approach, according to which obedience to orders is never a defence. The author contends that close scrutiny of national legislation and case law shows that the divergences in international practice are more apparent than real and that the customary rule on superior orders upholds the absolute liability approach. By adopting the conditional liability approach with regard to war crimes, Article 33 of the Rome Statute has departed from customary international law without any well-grounded reasons. This departure is all the more questionable since it is basically inconsistent with the codification of war crimes effected through Article 8 of the Rome Statute. This Article lays down an exhaustive list of war crimes covering acts that are unquestionably and blatantly criminal. It would therefore appear to be impossible to claim that orders to perpetrate any of those acts are not manifestly unlawful or that subordinates could not recognize their illegality.