In association with the International Commission of Jurists

Books

20 Apr

[Jennifer Trahan is a Clinical Professor at NYU's Center for Global Affairs and Director of their Concentration in International Law and Human Rights. She serves as Convenor of the Global Institute for the Prevention of Aggression where Annegret Hartig is Program Manager, and Sergey Sayapin is on the Council of Advisors.] The editors, Sergey Sayapin, Rustam Atadjanov, Umesh Kadam, Gerhard Kemp,...

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19 Apr

[Prof. Dr. Manoj Kumar Sinha is Director at the Indian Law Institute, New Delhi, India.] The present piece undertakes a review of the contribution by Anicée Van Engeland in the recently published research handbook on International Conflict and Security Law. The research handbook is a comprehensive compilation of articles pertaining to diverse themes around international security. As has been noted in the preface to the edition, despite there...

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17 Apr

[Vesselin Popovski is Professor and Vice Dean at Jindal Global Law School.] International Conflict and Security Law, edited by Sergey Sayapin, Rustam, Atadjanov, Umesh Kadam, Gerhard Kemp, Nicolás Zambrana-Tevar, and Noelle Quenivét, is one of the most comprehensive volumes addressing the complex relationship between international law and peace and security, that I have ever read. It should be on everyone’s desk. The fundamental reach and cover of...

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17 Apr

[Dr. Sergey Sayapin is Professor at KIMEP University´s School of Law (Almaty, Kazakhstan).] On behalf of the editors, let me thank Opinio Juris for kindly hosting this book review symposium on International Conflict and Security Law: A Research Handbook. Our sincere thanks are due to Professor Kevin Jon Heller, Ms Ameera Ismail, Ms Aphiwan Natasha King, and the entire Editorial team at Opinio Juris for their excellent support. We...

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17 Feb

[Mary Ellen O’Connell is the Robert and Marion Short Professor of Law and Professor of International Peace Studies, University of Notre Dame. O’Connell’s research is in the areas of international law on the use of force and international legal theory.] Agatha Verdebout’s Rewriting Histories of the Use of Force belongs with Philip Allott’s Health of Nations, Martti Koskenniemi’s Gentle Civilizer of Nations, and Stephen Neff’s...

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16 Feb

[Ingo Venzke is a Professor at the University of Amsterdam.] ‘This workshop where ideals are fabricated—it seems to me just to stink of lies.’Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morality (2007 [1887]), §I.14 It is a common belief that international law had little to say on the legality of the use of force before the First World War. A ‘narrative of indifference’ holds that...

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16 Feb

[Miriam Bak McKenna is Associate Professor of Law and Global Governance at Roskilde University, School of Social Science and Business. Her book Reckoning with Empire: Self-Determination in International Law (Brill) was released in December 2022.] By now it is perhaps axiomatic to assert that the historical narratives surrounding international law are rather murky at best. As the canon of texts revisiting and critiquing...

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15 Feb

[Siddharth Mallavarapu is Professor and Head of the Department of International Relations and Governance Studies at the Shiv Nadar Institution of Eminence in India.] Close to a year after the commencement of the Russia-Ukraine war, there is barely anything that can be more topical and worthwhile than a closer look at the histories of international law relating to the use of force. Agatha Verdebout...

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15 Feb

[Isa Blumi is Associate Professor at the Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, Stockholm University.] Dr. Agatha Verdebout’s Rewriting Histories of the Use of Force (2021) charts how International Law’s founding generations of scholars sought relevance during times when the powerful adopted “the law” only when it suited their interests. By reading beyond the ‘emotional’, ‘cynical’, or ‘idealistic’ discourse that accompanied assertive claims about the...

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14 Feb

[Alonso Gurmendi Dunkelberg is a Departmental Lecturer of International Relations at Oxford University.] Rewriting Histories of the Use of Force: The Narrative of Indifference, by Dr. Agatha Verdebout, is an impressive volume covering a vast time period with an ambitious goal: to, as the title suggests, “rewrite” the history of use of force in international law in the 19th century. Dr. Verdebout starts by noting...

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14 Feb

[Mohamed S. Helal is Associate Professor of Law at the Moritz College of Law, Ohio State University; and member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration as well as of the African Union Commission on International Law.] Agatha Verdebout’s Rewriting Histories of the Use of Force: The Narrative of Indifference is an exhaustively researched and lucidly written volume that makes important contributions to both the history...

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