This book demonstrates theoretically and empirically how international law's detailed design provisions help states cooperate despite harsh international political realities.

Antarctica & the Southern Ocean cover one-tenth of the earth's surface. In a legal & environmental sense, Antarctica represents the geography of hope. It is the freshest & most pristine of regions, governed by a legal regime that offers Antarctica & its circumpolar water the unique possibility of becoming the world's first global wilderness preserve. But in today's age of resource scarcity, Antarctica still provokes much political, economic & legal debate. Over the past decade, international attention has increasingly focused on the legal status of the continent, the potential for hydrocarbon exploitation offshore, & opportunities for harvesting circumpolar living marine resources. In this fascinating treatment, Christopher C. Joyner undertakes the first serious examination of the intimate relationship between Antarctica & the law of the sea. Using Antarctica as a case study, Joyner probes large conceptual issues of ocean law & politics. He uses the intricate details of oceanography & law to unravel the dynamics of the Antarctic Treaty System. In doing so, he examines how the changing importance of Antarctic issues has affected the development of the law of the sea for the region, the ways in which states define their national interests, & the accommodation through various negotations that have contributed to the development of law for governing the Southern Ocean. While the study of law for the Antarctic is provocative in itself, this work goes much farther. The study critically analyzes the region's biogeography, the condition of sovereignty on the continent, the lawfulness of asserting jurisdictional zones offshore, & various legal implications for Antarctica's continental shelf, local island groups, circumpolar deep seabed, & the Southern Ocean's high seas. Moreover, the special legal efforts by the international community to protect the Antarctic seas from marine pollution & to conserve its living marine resources are comprehensively appraised. Thorough, authoritative, & objectively reasoned, Antarctica & the Law of the Sea provides an insightful assessment of how law can progressively develop for a resource-rich region of the world's ocean. As such, it should appeal to a broad range of international lawyers & social scientists who are interested in international relations, political economy, environmental politics, & the law of the sea.

Africa has experienced a number of territorial disputes over land and maritime boundaries, due in part to its colonial and post-colonial history. This book explores the legal, political, and historical nature of disputes over territory in the African continent, and critiques the content and application of contemporary International law to the resolution of African territorial and border disputes. Drawing on central concepts of public international law such as sovereignty and jurisdiction, and socio-political concepts such as colonialism, ethnicity, nationality and self-determination, this book interrogates the intimate connection that peoples and nations have to territory and the severe disputes these may lead to. Gbenga Oduntan identifies the major principles of law at play in relation to territorial, and boundary disputes, and argues that the predominant use of foreign based adjudicatory mechanisms in attempting to deal with African boundary disputes alienates those institutions and mechanisms from African people and can contribute to the recurrence of conflicts and disputes in and among African territories. He suggests that the understanding and application of multidisciplinary dispute resolution mechanisms and strategies can allow for a more holistic and effective treatment of boundary disputes. As an in depth study into the legal, socio-political and anthropological mechanisms involved in the understanding of territorial boundaries, and a unique synthesis of an African jurisprudence of international boundaries law, this book will be of great use and interest to students, researchers, and practitioners in African and Public International Law, International Relations, and decision-makers in need of better understanding the settlement of disputes over territorial boundaries in both Africa and the wider world.

Pan-Africanism offers a unique vantage point to study Africa’s encounters with international law : first, as a continent whose political entities were excluded from the scope of application of the Eurocentric version of international law that was applied among the self-styled club of “civilized nations” ; second, through the emergence of African States as subjects of international law willing to contribute to the reform and further development of the law as a universal interstate normative system; and third, as members of the OAU and the AU acting collectively to generate innovative principles and rules, which, though applicable only in the context of intra-African relations, either go beyond those existing at the universal level or complement them by broadening their scope. This study examines those encounters through the various stages in the evolution of Pan-Africanism from a diaspora-based movement, engaged in the struggle for the emancipation of the peoples of the continent, to groupings of independent States and intergovernmental organizations which continue to promote African unity and influence the development of international law to make it more reflective of diverse legal traditions and values.

This book brings together 18 contributions by authors from different legal systems and backgrounds. They address the political implications of the writing of the history of legal issues ranging from slavery over the use of force and extraterritorial jurisdiction to Eurocentrism.