Great Powers and Outlaw States
Unequal Sovereigns in the International Legal Order

Historical and legal analysis of Kosovo and Afghanistan wars and impact on global political order.

Gerry Simpson (Author)

9780521827614, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 22 April 2004

416 pages
23.6 x 16.1 x 3 cm, 0.802 kg

'The book contains refreshing and sometimes provoking thoughts and it is of interest for students and scholars well beyond the circle of international law.' Journal of Peace Research

The presence of Great Powers and outlaw states is a central but under-explored feature of international society. In this book, Gerry Simpson describes the ways in which an international legal order based on 'sovereign equality' has accommodated the Great Powers and regulated outlaw states since the beginning of the nineteenth-century. In doing so, the author offers a fresh understanding of sovereignty which he terms juridical sovereignty to show how international law has managed the interplay of three languages: the languages of Great Power prerogative, the language of outlawry (or anti-pluralism) and the language of sovereign equality. The co-existence and interaction of these three languages is traced through a number of moments of institutional transformation in the global order from the Congress of Vienna to the 'war on terrorism'.

Foreword Professor James Crawford
Preface
Acknowledgements
Part I. Introduction: 1. Great powers and outlaw states
Part II. Concepts: 2. Sovereign equalities
3. Legalised hierarchies
Part III. Histories: Great Powers: 4. Legalised hegemony: Vienna to The Hague 1815–1906
5. 'Extreme equality': rupture at The Hague 1907
6. The great powers, sovereign equality and the making of the UN charter: San Francisco 1945
7. Holy alliances: Verona 1818 and Kosovo 1999
Part IV. Histories: Outlaw States: 8. Unequal sovereigns 1815–1839
9. Peace-loving nations: 1945
10. Outlaw states: 1999
Part V. Conclusion: 11. Arguing about Afghanistan: great powers and outlaw states redux
12. The puzzle of sovereignty.

Subject Areas: International law [LB]