This Chapter outlines the position in both anti-discrimination law and workplace health and safety law as it relates to the provision of women-only spaces and services, including sanitary, showering, and changing facilities. Within the workplace, there is limited discretion afforded to employers: single-sex toilets, showers and changing rooms must be provided if such facilities are offered on a communal basis, i.e. where more than one person uses the facility at the time. For services to the public, things are more complex. The default position is one of non-discrimination, meaning that unless there is some exception, it is unlawful to provide a service for men but not women or women but not men. Where there is an exception, a service provider must operate within the bounds of that exception to avoid liability. It has long been established that there is no entitlement to access single sex services for the opposite biological sex purely based on self-identification. This chapter considers whether and under what circumstances it may be lawful to offer ‘trans-inclusive’ services.

This chapter examines international obligations imposed on all States to protect and preserve the marine environment in relation to submarine operations. However, the sovereign immunity of military submarines significantly impacts both the applicability and enforcement of international marine environmental law. At present, nuclear powered and nuclear armed submarines pose the greatest environmental risks, and we discuss nuclear liability regimes, the possible relevance of nuclear-free zone treaties, and environmental obligations when decommissioning nuclear submarines. The obligation to prevent, reduce and control marine pollution may also be relevant in the context of sonar being used to detect submarines, as concerns have arisen as to the negative implication for marine mammals. While there have been various legal initiatives to address noise pollution, it is apparent that the consequences for military submarines is slight.

Chapter 2, “The Amazon as an International Commons: Governing Principles for Negotiating Sovereignty and Environmental Imaginaries,” analyzes the international environmental governance of the Amazon through the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization (ACTO). In particular, it explores how ACTO has incorporated governance principles for governing international commons (‘enclosure’, ‘common heritage of humanity’, and ‘common concern of humanity’) into its discourses, instruments, and practices. The Chapter explains that despite the discursive rejection of international forces, the basin states appeal to ‘common concern’ to embrace international cooperation in localized initiatives, while through ‘enclosure’ they promote transnational extractive and infrastructure projects. Beyond the debate between internationalization and sovereignty, these principles interact under anthropocentric, ethnocentric, and state-centric premises. This produces a fragmented governance that legitimizes the expansion of extractivism under sovereign and developmental imaginaries while excluding the concerns and aspirations of Indigenous peoples and environmentalists.

This chapter focuses on the different ways that strategic uses of submarines have influenced developments in international law. It highlights the security dimensions in discussions at the failed Second Law of the Sea Conference in 1960. Superpower dynamics during the Cold War also influenced decisions leading to the negotiations for the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea as well as the negotiations themselves. The growing importance of nuclear-powered submarines, as well as nuclear weapons on conventionally-powered submarines, spurred international agreements on nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament. This chapter brings to the fore the strategic importance of military submarines for major maritime powers in recent decades as it provides critical context for contemporary development and application of international law. We conclude Part I of the book in this chapter in bringing together key themes in the legal history of submarines that continue to influence the modern international law of submarines.

In recent years there has been a growing interest within the field of empirical legal studies in employing experimental methods to analyse the functioning of EU law and institutions. While this approach remains largely limited to social science topics – primarily examining the impact of EU law enforcement on public opinion – it holds significant potential for broader applications. This chapter aims to review these contributions and the methodological intricacies of experimental research in EU law, providing researchers with an understanding of its advantages and limitations. Through a systematic examination of contemporary experimental studies, it identifies emerging trends and research questions. The chapter further explores the various types of experiments available in this field – such as surveys, lab, and field experiments – evaluating their capacity to deepen our understanding of EU legal decision-making and policy-making processes. It also considers potential themes for future empirical investigation of EU law. By exploring these topics, this chapter contributes to the methodological advancement and empirical rigour of the multidisciplinary scholarship devoted to the empirical study of EU law. It offers valuable insights for scholars seeking to leverage experimental methodologies in their pursuit of evidence-based analyses of EU law and its policy impact. Ultimately, this comprehensive review serves as a foundational resource for scholars, policy-makers, and practitioners keen on advancing empirical research in the dynamic landscape of EU law.

Chapter 3 shows how the international law of the sea moved away from state unilateralism in favor of the equitable model of sovereignty by requiring states to resolve disputes over international fisheries and maritime boundaries through cooperation in accordance with equitable principles.

Chapter 9 explains how duties of international cooperation apply to the international community’s collective responsibility to safeguard international peace, security, and human rights. With the establishment of the United Nations, the Grotian paradigm of states deciding when to use force for themselves shifted to a collective stewardship model whereby states must cooperate with one another to avoid armed conflict, punish atrocity crimes, and combat global poverty, including through collective consultation, negotiation, and peaceful dispute resolution.

EU legal scholarship has contributed to the construction of the EU legal order as we know it. The references to academic works in Advocate Generals’ opinions are a testament to the co-operation between academia and EU institutions. The focus of EU law scholars on the EU Court of Justice has driven a type of EU law scholarship which is chiefly doctrinal. Yet, under the influence of US legal scholarship, empirical methods have started colonising EU legal research. Empirical approaches have enriched EU doctrinal work and unveiled under-explored aspects of the EU’s functioning. Thus started the ‘competition’ between the doctrinal and the empirical within EU law scholarship. To solve the methodological impasse, co-operation between methods would seem the most sensible approach in view of higher epistemological gains. However, this chapter demonstrates that methodological synergy may not solve the challenge of identifying the most comprehensive and accurate research method to study EU law so easily. It does so by offering critical reflections on the epistemological limits of empirical doctrinal methods, and a novel perspective on the empirical underpinnings of EU legal doctrinal scholarship. Ultimately, the chapter invites EU law scholars to adopt methodological modesty, as the boundaries between methods may not be as clear-cut as one would think, especially in EU law research.

This Introduction Chapter provides the background and empirical and theoretical justifications for the study. It explains the global relevance of the Amazon and the current drivers of environmental degradation in the basin. It also discusses three notions that guide the analysis through the chapters: polycentric governance, plurinational governance, and pluriversal governance.

The growing popularity of empirical legal studies (ELS) in the EU has gone hand in hand with increasing resistance against the new movement. This raises the issue as to whether, and what precisely, empirical legal research adds to our understanding of EU law. The chapter argues that the contribution is three-fold. First, ELS allows us to investigate old questions about EU law which we have always been asking, but with different – often better suited – tools. Second, it adds important new questions to the research agenda that had previously escaped scholarly attention. Third, it extends the concept of EU law, making it richer and more inclusive. This intellectual acquis is its strength but also makes ELS susceptible to two lines of critique. Some may see it as going too far, methodologically and substantively, from existing legal scholarship and discourse, others as not going far enough.

By early September in 1999, many feared genocide in East Timor was imminent. Following a UN-sanctioned referendum, in which the East Timorese people voted in favour of independence rather than autonomy within Indonesia, violence had exploded in the province. Militias, intimately linked with the Indonesian armed forces, were perpetrating massacres, destroying infrastructure and forcibly displacing tens of thousands of East Timorese. Jailed independence leader Xanana Gusmao warned: ‘We foresee chaos. We foresee … genocide in East Timor’, a view shared by many experts on the region. Yet these dire predictions did not come to pass. Australia declared its willingness to lead an international peacekeeping force and, under overwhelming international pressure, Indonesia acquiesced to the intervention. Within days of UN-authorisation, the first troops of INTERFET arrived in Dili, and the risk of genocide very quickly abated. This chapter examines the factors that led up to this crucial intervention and enabled a timely and robust international response to the crisis. It concludes by considering how lessons from this example can inform an evidence-based approach to genocide prevention.

Chapter 2 explains how international law governing rivers has evolved to establish a requirement that upstream and downstream sovereigns must consult and negotiate in good faith to determine mutually satisfactory solutions for the shared use of rivers.