Research Handbook On Soft Law

This pioneering Research Handbook provides an in-depth scholarly overview of the field of soft law, exploring the scope of current thinking in the field as well as proposing future pathways for soft law research. Through theoretical and empirical analyses by established voices in the field, the Research Handbook offers important insights and much-needed clarity into the dynamic and complex nature of soft law. This title contains one or more Open Access chapters.

The effect of Globalization on health has attracted the attention of scholars and policy makers across multiple disciplines. A key concern is the regulation of international health protection, and in particular the use of international health instruments and the complex interaction between international law and health considerations. For the first time, a group of law and policy scholars have analysed these issues, drawing on knowledge from their respective fields. The resulting book provides comprehensive coverage of contemporary issues in global health law and governance.

The editors’ substantive introduction and the specially commissioned chapters in the Handbook explore the emergence of transnational labour law as a field, along with its contested contours. The expansion of traditional legal methods, such as treaties, is juxtaposed with the proliferation of contemporary alternatives such as indicators, framework agreements and consumer-led initiatives. Key international and regional institutions are studied for their coverage of such classic topics as freedom of association, equality, and sectoral labour standard-setting, as well as for the space they provide for dialogue. The volume underscores transnational labour law’s capacity to build bridges, including on migration, climate change and development.

This illuminating Research Handbook analyses the role that emotions play and ought to play in legal reasoning and practice, rejecting the simplistic distinction between reason and emotion.

Research Handbook on International Law and Natural Resources provides a systematic and comprehensive analysis of the role of international law in regulating the exploration and exploitation of natural resources. It illuminates interactions and tensions between international environmental law, human rights law and international economic law. It also discusses the relevance of soft law, international dispute settlement, as well as of various unilateral, bilateral, regional and transnational initiatives in the governance of natural resources. While the Handbook is accessible to those approaching the subject for the first time, it identifies pressing areas for further investigation that will be of interest to advanced researchers.

What is the relationship between politics and international law? Inspired by comparative politics and socio-legal studies, this Research Handbook develops a novel framework for comparative analysis of politics and international law at different stages of governance and in different governance systems. It applies the framework in a wide range of fields—from human rights and environmental standards, to cyber conflict and intellectual property—to show how the relationship between politics and international law varies depending on the sites where it unfolds.

The global landscape has changed profoundly over the past decades. As a result, the making of international law and the way we think about it has become more and more diversified. This Research Handbook offers a comprehensive guide to the theory and practice of international lawmaking today. It takes stock at both the conceptual and the empirical levels of the instruments, processes, and actors involved in the making of international law. The editors have taken an approach which carefully combines theory and practice in order to provide both an overview and a critical reflection of international lawmaking. Comprehensive and well-structured, the book contains essays by leading scholars on key aspects of international lawmaking and on lawmaking in the main issue areas. Attention is paid to classic processes as well as new developments and shades of normativity. This timely and authoritative Handbook will be a valuable resource for academics, students, legal practitioners, diplomats, government and international organization officials as well as civil society representatives.

Inquisitive and diverse, this innovative Research Handbook explores the ways in which human rights apply to people at work, through national constitutional provisions, judicial decisions and the application of rights expressed in supranational instruments. Key topics include evaluation of the role of the ILO in developing and promoting internationally recognized labour rights, and the examination of the meaning of the obligation of business to respect human rights, considering the evolution from international soft law to incorporation in codes of conduct and the emerging requirement of due diligence.