The methods of settlement considered so far can be used in all types of disputes and are available to all states. Alongside these general methods are to be found specialised procedures created by particular groups of states for the resolution of disputes in a specific subject area. We have already seen the specific nature of investor-state arbitration in Chapter 7. The machinery available for the settlement of disputes in other special fields will be considered in subsequent chapters. Chapter 11 examines dispute settlement in international trade law, while this chapter provides an outline and review of the arrangements for dispute settlement to be found in the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (hereafter ‘the Convention’ or ‘UNCLOS’).

Camilla Morelli (2011, 2012) has been a recent participant observer – with a focus on children – in a transitional community of Matses Indians in the Peruvian Amazon. She marvels at how facile and active the Matses children are in the natural environment, compared to what she feels is her own ineptitude. She is cowed by three- and four-year-olds who competently paddle and maneuver canoes on the wide river. She observes young boys nimbly catching and handling enormous catfish (cover photo). And then she is struck by the painful contrast between the children’s mastery of their natural surroundings and the great discomfort and incompetence they display in the classroom.

International organizations perform activities in areas in which states can no longer operate effectively in isolation, and in which there is a common interest in cooperation within a permanent international framework. This chapter will examine international organizations primarily from a legal perspective. The chapter aims to present a general overview of the law of international organizations. It discusses the legal status, privileges, and immunities of international organizations. The chapter further deals with membership issues, powers, and institutional structures. The chapter also looks at decisions of international organizations: the way in which they are taken and the different types of decisions. The chapter will briefly examine the finances of international organizations. There has been an exponential increase in activities of international organizations over the years. Not all of these activities have been successful, however, and there have been failures and wrongdoings. In recent years, a much-debated issue is the extent to which international organizations and/or their members may be held responsible for such failures and wrongdoings.

International economic law is a field of public international law that regulates crossborder transactions in goods, services, and capital, as well as monetary relations between states. This chapter focuses on the branches of international economic law that govern international trade, international investment, and international monetary law. It sets out the historical background, fundamental rules, and dispute settlement systems in the areas of international trade law and international investment law, and it concludes by introducing international monetary law. International trade and international investment law share some fundamental principles, such as non-discrimination, although most favored nation treatment and national treatment take somewhat different forms in the two bodies of law. This chapter covers the Bretton Woods institutions, namely the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), as well as the World Trade Organization (WTO).

This chapter begins by elaborating on the concept of a dispute, before providing a historical perspective on the evolution of the requirement to settle disputes peacefully. The chapter then explores diplomatic as well as legal methods of dispute settlement. Diplomatic forms of dispute settlement (also known as political or non-legal forms of dispute settlement) include negotiation, mediation, inquiry, and conciliation. Legal forms of dispute settlement include arbitration and adjudication. Resort by states to dispute settlement procedures, and in particular legal methods of dispute settlement, has grown exponentially in the last decades. Since the 1990s, the International Court of Justice has had an increasingly active docket of cases, and, in addition, the Permanent Court of Arbitration has undergone a sort of renaissance. The focus of this chapter will be on the settlement of inter-state disputes, as opposed to disputes between states and non-state actors or between non-state actors.

This chapter begins by introducing a number of foundational concepts, which serve as the starting point in the field of public international law. Section 1 of this chapter begins with the notion that states are sovereign equals, which must consent to be bound by nternational law. This section also introduces the critical distinction that international law makes between states and “non-state actors.” Section 2 of this chapter discusses the inevitable comparison of public international law with domestic legal systems, and the significant limitations of this analogy as a means for understanding the field of public international law. Section 3 concludes by explaining this book’s overarching structure, as well as the approach of this book to the introduction of public international law.

The rules of state responsibility are set out in the International Law Commission’s (ILC) Articles on the Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts. This chapter introduces the basic features of the ILC’s Articles on State Responsibility, beginning with an explanation of what constitutes an internationally wrongful act. The following section discusses the circumstances precluding wrongfulness that may be invoked by states seeking to avoid responsibility for an internationally wrongful act. The chapter then covers the aftermath of an internationally wrongful act, which can involve legal consequences, such as reparations, as well as countermeasures. This chapter focuses specifically on the responsibility of states, rather than the responsibility of international organizations or individuals.

This chapter sketches the development of international human rights law. The legal position of individuals was perceived by states as a domestic affair of the sovereign state, which could effectively treat its citizens as it pleased. It was not until after the Second World War that this fundamentally changed and international law began to grant individuals rights to protect them from the state. The chapter further presents the main categories or generations of human rights and discusses their key characteristics. Human rights are generally organized in three categories or generations: (a) civil and political rights; (b) economic, social, and cultural rights; and (c) collective rights. This chapter will subsequently turn to several matters concerning the scope of human rights norms, including their addressees, their territorial scope of application, and the circumstances under which human rights may be restricted by the state. Finally, this chapter will explain how human rights are monitored and enforced under international law.

After a sketch of the history of the law of the sea and the traditional freedoms of the sea, this chapter discusses the various efforts to codify the law of the sea during the twentieth century, which culminated in the adoption of UNCLOS in 1982. Subsequently, the chapter examines the legal regimes governing the various maritime zones, as well as two international areas: the high seas and the Area. The chapter then takes up thematic issues in the law of the sea, namely the delimitation of maritime boundaries, the protection of the marine environment, the special interests of developing countries, and the system for the settlement of law of the sea disputes. The chapter concludes by noting that, despite the relatively comprehensive scope of UNCLOS, a number of new challenges have arisen with respect to the law of the sea, especially as a result of human-driven climate change.

This chapter will first discuss the main subjects of international law and explain their principal features. Second, this chapter will zoom in on states, the traditional and principal actors in the international legal system. It will discuss the criteria for statehood under international law, the role that recognition plays in this respect, and explain how new states emerge. Finally, this chapter will turn to an analysis of the right to self-determination, a notion that plays an important role in the creation of states and is considered to be the most prominent right of one of the subjects of international law: peoples.