E-raamat: The Politics of International Law [Hart e-raamatud]

Across 14 chapters modified from essays written over the past two decades, Koskenniemi (international law, U. of Helsinki, Finland) explores different contexts in which international law takes on a contested, political appearance through the use of international law as an inseparable vocabulary for politics. Chapters are organized into sections that introduce the basic conceptual understanding of the "politics of international law" promoted herein; collective security as a platform for the use of legal argument in the context of the first Iraq crisis in 1990-91 and the debates among European lawyers during the 1999 Kosovo crisis; issues of ambition, uncertainty, innovation, and stasis in the human rights field; the operation of international law in "limit situations" in the context of crimes against humanity and nuclear weapons as compared to more routine types of institutional work and legal argument; and the politics of international law as it applies to the subject that operates the law and the specificity of legal language. Distributed in the US by ISBS. Annotation ©2011 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Today, international law is everywhere. Wars are declared and conducted in its name, and in its name rights are both protected and renounced. It is also international law which determines who owns and uses the world's scarcest resources. Thus, international law is part of a dangerous and unjust world - a part of how we are governed globally. But, it can also be used to challenge aspects of this world and to give voice to projects which seek to transform the institutions of global governance. In this collection of essays, Professor Martti Koskenniemi - a well known practitioner and one of the great theorists and historians of international law - examines the recent debates on humanitarian intervention, collective security, protection of human rights, and the 'fight against impunity.' Additionally, Koskenniemi reflects on the use of the professional techniques of international law to intervene politically. The essays both illustrate and expand his influential theory of the critical role of international law in international politics.