The Changing Practices of International Law

Countering mainstream theories, this book focuses on the expanding institutionalisation of international law.

Tanja Aalberts (Edited by), Thomas Gammeltoft-Hansen (Edited by)

9781108441971, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 2 January 2020

271 pages
22.9 x 15.1 x 1.5 cm, 0.4 kg

With more than 158,000 treaties and some 125 judicial organisations, international law has become an inescapable factor in world politics since the Second World War. In recent years, however, international law has also been increasingly challenged as states are voicing concerns that it is producing unintended effects and accuse international courts of judicial activism. This book provides an important corrective to existing theories of international law by focusing on how states respond to increased legalisation and rely on legal expertise to manoeuvre within and against international law. Through a number of case studies, covering a wide range of topical issues such as surveillance, environmental regulation, migration and foreign investments, the book argues that the expansion and increased institutionalisation of international law itself have created the structural premise for this type of politics of international law. More international law paradoxically increases states' political room of manoeuvre in world society.

1. Introduction: the changing practices of international law Thomas Gammeltoft-Hansen and Tanja Aalberts
2. Sovereignty games, law and politics in world society Tanja Aalberts and Thomas Gammeltoft-Hansen
3. Abandonment, construction and denial: the formation of a zone Margareta Brummer
4. Backlash and state strategies in international investment law Malcolm Langford, Daniel Behn and Ole Kristian Fauchald
5. 'Part of the game': government strategies against European litigation concerning migrant rights Moritz Baumgärtel
6. The disaggregated law of global mass surveillance Itamar Mann
7. Legalisation in international environmental law Jaye Ellis
8. Search and rescue as a geopolitics of international law Thomas Gammeltoft-Hansen and Tanja Aalberts
9. Conclusion: the dark side of legalisation Tanja Aalberts and Thomas Gammeltoft-Hansen.

Subject Areas: International organisations & institutions [LBBU], International humanitarian law [LBBS], International environmental law [LBBP], Public international law [LBB], International law [LB]