Chapter 14 examines how the rise of American philanthropic foundations – particularly the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP) – shaped international law during the League of Nations era. Although the United States government remained formally outside most League institutions, American influence was felt as private organizations brought their considerable resources to bear on the development of the social sciences, including the discipline of international law. The chapter explores how the CEIP’s legal philanthropy sustained international law as a transnational professional practice linking League officials, judges, academics, and practitioners. Drawing on archival research from the League of Nations and the CEIP, as well as a dataset of roughly 25,000 individuals affiliated with League bodies and related NGOs, the chapter addresses several key questions: What strategy guided the Endowment’s funding decisions? How did this strategy interact with broader geopolitical dynamics, particularly the ambivalent US–League relationship? And how did recipients leverage foundation support to advance their own agendas? The chapter traces the CEIP’s project of replacing a militarized global regime with a rules-based international order administered by trained legal professionals but also offers insights into the structural impact of philanthropic funding on the sociological makeup of the legal profession in the League era.

This chapter focuses on the use of AI at sentencing. First, we note that AI can be used in different ways in the task of sentencing offenders. Second, the chapter considers when a ‘robot’ judge can be said to perform sufficiently well to replace a human judge. We argue that a plausible criterion for the assessment of the performance of a robot judge is contingent on penal ethical considerations and since these have not been sufficiently developed, we do not yet possess an applicable criterion for a comparison robot and human judges. Third, this conclusion also has implications for less radical applications of AI (such as the use of algorithms as sentencing advisory systems), for assessing competing types of AI models, and for carrying out post hoc evaluations of the performance of sentencing algorithms once they have been implemented.

Over the last two decades, new historical scholarship has greatly improved our knowledge and understanding of the history of the League of Nations beyond the old dichotomy of failure or success. Meanwhile, legal scholars are showing an increasing interest in the history of international law. Yet, a systematic account of the important role of international law in the League of Nations is lacking. Surveying the main state of the art, this introduction outlines how the Handbook aims move beyond these two separate strands. Moreover, it elaborates on its understanding of international law as the new ‘meta-language of global governance’, as well as on the methodological underpinnings the various chapters before briefly outlining the content of the Handbook.

This project is a close study of the legal and political aspects of management of water resources in semi-arid environments. The British in India laid the foundations of the modern irrigation system in what is now India and Pakistan. In semi-arid environments, the bulk of agriculture relies on irrigation, as it did in Spain under the Moors. We can observe a stark divide in the use of laws and institutions to manage natural resources in different societies, at different times and places. Some societies have managed in a way that achieved prosperity and long-term sustainability. The Moors of Spain created a vibrant civilization in the Middle Ages that lasted nearly eight hundred years. One of the reasons for the dynamism of their civilization was their judicious management of water resources on which foundation they created a thriving agricultural economy that produced the economic surplus for their vibrant urban culture. Of particular interest is what I regard as the essence of Moorish water management: its management of scarcity by borrowing principles from the great cradles of civilization, Mesopotamia and the Nile, which built abundance in harsh environments, along with principles of use, reuse and justice as conceived of in the Quran.

Chapter 11 argues that the absence of the Permanent Court of International Justice (PCIJ) in the Manchurian dispute case at the League of Nations in 1931–33 had a significant impact on the development of the international judicial system for interstate conflict resolution. It argues that the dispute contributed to the ‘decoupling’ of the judiciary process from the League’s collective security mechanism which it had tried to build in the 1920s and of which the PCIJ was an integral part. The Japanese foreign policy elite’s shifting understanding of international law and the League, this chapter argues, was critical in underpinning this development. These elites had understood international law largely as a set of inter-imperial agreements and saw the League and the PCIJ as operating according to this norm. This understanding remained persistent at the beginning of the Manchurian dispute, and led them to argue that the case should be submitted to the PCIJ. In the course of the Manchurian case at the League, however, they recognized that the dominant norm was shifting, which prompted them eventually to opt for extra-League, bilateral inter-imperial relations.

Genetically modified food (GMF) is part of our realities as consumers worldwide. The techniques and possibilities involved do require an Islamic legal (fiqhi) study as to assess GMF with regard to its consumption, production and related research. The paper focuses on placing the study of GMF within a holistic context, under consideration of the societal background and rationale it has been developed under. It investigates into the possibility of transferring fiqhi devices such as istihalah (chemical transformation), istihlak (extreme dilution) and others to GMF combining genetic material from permissible and non-permissible sources. It raises a number of deliberations and concerns with regard to the usage of the maqasidi scheme and discusses the permissibility of GMF under the aspects of changing creation or harnessing nature.

This chapter focuses on the judicial use of AI in German courts. In recent years, the work of German courts has changed significantly due to increasing digitalisation in particular through the introduction of electronic court files and electronic communication with the courts. AI is being used in a number of different applications and is being tested in several pilot projects. After an overview of the court organisation and competences, the most important projects and possible applications of AI in German courts are described. The opportunities and challenges of AI for the German justice system and its impact on the work of German courts are analysed. Applications include automatic speech recognition, data extraction, anonymisation of court decisions, and support for judicial decision-making. These use-cases are then evaluated in the light of German constitutional law and the EU’s AI Act 2024.

This chapter introduces the concepts such as nomadic knowledging and nomadic languaging through ethnographic encounters with Mongolian nomadic herdsmen. Centred on the practice of the nomadic reminiscing circle, it explores how nomadic communities integrate additional languages such as English within their land-based epistemologies, while safeguarding cultural and linguistic boundaries. These practices embody both fluidity and rootedness, playfulness, and precarity, reflecting the adaptability and resilience of nomadic life. By examining how English is accepted only when mediated by humility and respect, the chapter highlights the relational ethics underlying nomadic engagements with language. It argues that applied linguistics must learn from nomadic perspectives, which emphasise mobility, contextual responsiveness, and land-connected ways of knowing, thereby offering new pathways for rethinking language in global and local contexts.

This chapter explores the golden era of the classical doctrine of civil war, which lasted until the middle of the nineteenth century. Its focus is on the Spanish American revolutions and the emergence of the law of neutrality in the context of civil wars. The several case examples illustrate how the familiar questions and disputes from the previous chapters persisted and developed in state practice throughout the period. In addition to the Spanish American revolutions, the chapter also discusses the impact of European and American revolutionary ideologies on international movements and illustrates the significant practical limitations of the classical doctrine: while it stemmed from the practice of the transatlantic world, elsewhere in the world it often seemed absent or selectively applied to deny the legal standing of indigenous and colonial insurgents, or to legitimise local rebellions within Oriental empires.

Chapter 13 explores the interactions between the League of Nations and two transnational legal societies that had been torch-bearers of legal internationalism since their establishment in 1873: the Institute of International Law (IIL) and the International Law Association (ILA). Comparing how the IIL and ILA engaged with the League institutions and with specific projects such as the codification of international law, it demonstrates how the League’s limited geographical scope ensured that these ‘universal’ societies continued to consider themselves as crucial and sometimes even superior platforms for organizing legal internationalism. In spite of these reservations vis-à-vis the League, IIL and ILA discussions and reports fed the League with authoritative opinions on what was to be understood as international law, while the societies in return integrated the League into their scholarly understandings and their practical organization.

The principles of Islamic environmentalism are foundational to just practices in the global South and Muslim majority nations. Inevitably, as our common ground is transformed and protected, so too will our human interactions and political dynamics. Muslim-majority nations stand to face the most severe effects of climate change, but those who believe it and combat it are a minority. To face this crisis and protect people and the planet, we need to reconcile our Islamic customs and norms in an effort to shift our exploitative association with nature into an authentic and fair relationship. Muslims have a unique position in the ongoing environmental crisis. Principles set forth in the Quran and Ahadith have outlined foundational beliefs and instructions to guide our actions. The role of khilafa (stewardship) of this earth is a responsibility bestowed upon all Muslims. Moreover, this is compounded with the concept of being held accountable for our actions, and that the land itself will bear witness to our actions. The sanctity of life, Hurmah, is especially powerful.

This chapter puts geography center-stage and recreates a fuller spatial picture of the multiracial character of Sancho’s eighteenth-century London, from the granular level of buildings and streets, to neighborhoods and regions in the city, to the capital’s myriad international connections. The portrait that emerges shows that, despite the fact Sancho was distinctive and remarkable, he was no island. He lived a London life intimately connected to numerous overlapping worlds. He was a shopkeeper in a consumer-orientated city economy; a participant in the “proto-democracy” pioneered in the heart of the Westminster “court” where urban development and political citizenship were newly entangled; a figure whose social connections were enabled by physically traversing the city’s spaces as well as corresponding from distance; and a husband and father whose familial ties shed light on the depth, diversity, and geographic range of the Black urban presence.

The book’s final chapter returns to issues of transparency, arguing that so- called front groups tend to be open secrets of sorts, with their funders or founders rarely fully hidden from view. The chapter demonstrates that oil companies today are apt to use financial transparency as a strategic asset, framing themselves as amplifiers of citizen speech. As oil companies embrace a more open model of citizen organizing, critiques or policy interventions that call for exposing the sponsors of pro-oil campaigns see their relevancy wane. The chapter closes by exploring how scholars and environmental activists might use the empirical insights of previous chapters, particularly the top-down control, internal political fissures, and affective experience of risk by joiners in pro-oil campaigns, to create more just and effective grassroots interventions in climate politics.