Negotiating State And Non State Law

Addresses the relationship between the nation-state and non-state law, considering how they can coexist and transform each other.

Addresses the relationship between the nation-state and non-state law, considering how they can coexist and transform each other.

Describes a method of negotiation that isolates problems, focuses on interests, creates new options, and uses objective criteria to help two parties reach an agreement.

This book examines whether international agreements between non-state actors can be identified as a source of international law using objective criteria. It asks whether, beyond Article 38 of the Statute of the International Court of Justice, there is a system of rules, processes, beliefs or semantics by which these agreements can be objectively identified as a source of international law. Departing from the more usual state-centric analysis, it adopts postmodern legal positivism as its analytical tool. This allows for the reality that international law-making takes place in subjective social landscapes. To test the effectiveness of this approach, it is applied to agreements between petroleum agencies and corporations which allow two or more states to exploit disputed resources across boundaries looking in particular at arrangements involving China, Vietnam and the Philippines. By so doing it illustrates an alternative way that states can manage disputes, without having to resort to conflict. It will appeal to both scholars and practitioners of public international law, as well as civil servants.

This is a study of the principal negotiating processes and law-making tools through which contemporary international law is made. It does not seek to give an account of the traditional - and untraditional - sources and theories of international law, but rather to identify the processes, participants and instruments employed in the making of international law. It accordingly examines some of the mechanisms and procedures whereby new rules of law are created or old rules are amended or abrogated. It concentrates on the UN, other international organisations, diplomatic conferences, codification bodies, NGOs, and courts. Every society perceives the need to differentiate between its legal norms and other norms controlling social, economic and political behaviour. But unlike domestic legal systems where this distinction is typically determined by constitutional provisions, the decentralised nature of the international legal system makes this a complex and contested issue. Moreover, contemporary international law is often the product of a subtle and evolving interplay of law-making instruments, both binding and non-binding, and of customary law and general principles. Only in this broader context can the significance of so-called 'soft law' and multilateral treaties be fully appreciated. An important question posed by any examination of international law-making structures is the extent to which we can or should make judgments about their legitimacy and coherence, and if so in what terms. Put simply, a law-making process perceived to be illegitimate or incoherent is more likely to be an ineffective process. From this perspective, the assumption of law-making power by the UN Security Council offers unique advantages of speed and universality, but it also poses a particular challenge to the development of a more open and participatory process observable in other international law-making bodies.

Shows that law it is often better understood as an entangled web rather than as a coherent, orderly system.

As the leading legal historian of his generation in Canada and professor at McGill University for over three decades, Blaine Baker (1952–2018) was known for his unique personality, teaching style, intellectual cosmopolitanism, and deep commitment to the place of Canadian legal history in the curriculum of law faculties. Law, Life, and the Teaching of Legal History examines important themes in Canadian legal history through the prism of Baker’s career. Essays discuss Baker’s own research, his influence within McGill’s law faculty, his complex personality, and the relationship between the private and the public in the life of a university intellectual at the turn of the twenty-first century. Inspired by topics Baker took up in his own writing, contributors use Baker’s broad interests in legal culture to reflect on fundamental themes across Canadian legal history, including legal education, gender and race, technology, nation building and national identity, criminal law and marginalized populations, and constitutionalism. Law, Life, and the Teaching of Legal History offers a contemporary analysis of Canadian legal history and thoughtfully engages with what it means to honour one individual’s enduring legacy in the study of law.