Books

[Fuad Zarbiyev is an Associate in the International Arbitration Group of Curtis, Mallet-Prevost, Colt & Mosle LLP.] The interpretation discourse in modern international law is dominated by a textualist paradigm. This claim may seem empirically wrong if it is taken to mean that nothing other than eo nomine textual arguments features in the international legal discourse. After all, the interpretive regime...

[Julian Arato is an Associate-in-Law at Columbia Law School.] Interpretation in International Law is something of an iconoclastic volume, from its critical ethos to its provocative structure around the metaphor of the game. The object of its revisionism, above all, is an apparently stagnant formalism that seems too prevalent in the theory and practice of interpretation in international law today. Symbolic...

[Michael Waibel is a University Lecturer in Law at the University of Cambridge and Deputy Director of the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law.] The rise of distinct interpretive communities goes hand in hand with the much debated topic of fragmentation in international law. Even though the VCLT’s role in treaty interpretation has been studied extensively, how interpretive communities affect treaty interpretation...

[Daniel Peat and Matthew Windsor are PhD candidates at the University of Cambridge Faculty of Law, and members of Gonville and Caius College.] International lawyers have long realised the importance of interpretation to their academic discipline and professional practice. Interpretation in international law has traditionally been understood as a process of assigning meaning to texts with the objective of establishing rights...

[Carsten Stahn is Professor of International Criminal Law and Global Justice at Leiden University, and Programme Director of the Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies.] Jus post bellum comes in many forms and variations. One of the main shortcomings in existing discourse is the lack of engagement with the interplay between law and morality. Like the laws of war, and the...

[James Pattison is a Senior Lecturer in Politics, University of Manchester.] It’s often been claimed that there exists a responsibility to rebuild after war on behalf of the international community in cases such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Kosovo, Somalia, and so on. For instance, this was one of the key tenets of the report by the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty...

[Dov Jacobs is an Assistant Professor of International Law at the Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies, Leiden University and comments on international law issues at Spreading the Jam.] Carsten Stahn, Jennifer Easterday and Jens Iverson have edited a comprehensive and rich volume on the law applicable in the aftermath of conflict, also known as Jus Post Bellum. This book covers...

[Cymie R. Payne is Assistant Professor in the Department of Human Ecology at Rutgers University and the School of Law - Camden.] In my contribution to Jus Post Bellum: Mapping the Normative Foundations, I claim that: Existing treaty law prohibits some infliction of environmental damage, but only if it is “widespread, long-term and/or severe.” There is evidence of state practice recognizing the importance...

[Christine Bell is Assistant Principal (Global Justice), Professor of Constitutional Law, University of Edinburgh.]  A big congratulations on the editors for the new volume on Jus Post Bellum.  It is a great resource for those interested in all aspects of the debate and forms a comprehensive mapping of a broad range of perspectives. One of the interesting aspects of the book is...

[Jennifer Easterday is a researcher for the Jus Post Bellum Project at the Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies, Faculty of Law, Leiden University.] In my chapter of this volume, I suggest that jus post bellum should be considered as a broad, holistic concept that includes different functions: jus post bellum as providing a body of norms, as an interpretive framework,...