While not the focus of this textbook, understanding the role and nature of international environmental law is important in understanding UK environmental law. This is because, international law has played a vital role in creating frameworks for environmental protection and for catalysing developments in national environmental law. This chapter provides an overview of international environmental law. It begins with a brief examination of the concept of international environmental law, the different ways it can be defined, its history, and the emergence of hybrids of it. In the second section a number of key ideas in public international law that are relevant to international environmental law are explored including the sources of international law, state sovreignity, fragmentation, and international law theory. The analysis then moves on to the institutional landscape of international environmental law, its legal nature and finally the nuanced relationship between international environmental law and national and EU law.
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12. International Environmental Law
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13. International Economic Law
This chapter begins by defining international economic law. It then discusses the main international economic institutions: the World Trade Organization, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. It goes on to elaborate on the key principles of international trade law: tariffication, binding tariffs, most favoured nation treatment and the national treatment obligation and discusses exceptions to these principles, anti-dumping and subsidies, regional trade arrangements, and developing States and dispute settlement within the WTO. The chapter also discusses the key principles of international investment law (including foreign direct investment, protection standards, expropriation and dispute settlement); the international financial architecture; and international economic law and State sovereignty.
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4. International Law and Domestic Law
The interaction between international law and domestic (or national or ‘municipal’) law demonstrates the struggle between State sovereignty and the international legal order. While the international legal order seeks to organise international society in accordance with the general interests of the international community, State sovereignty can be used to protect a State against the intervention of international law into its national legal system. This chapter discusses theories about the relations between international law and national law; national law on the international plane; international law on the national plane; and examples of international law on the national plane.
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15. Criminology, punishment, and the state in a globalized society
Katja Franko
Questions of criminal law and criminal justice are increasingly becoming international, overcoming the confines of traditional jurisdictional constraints. This chapter traces these developments in order to examine what relevance criminology has had and may hold for understanding contemporary global issues. It examines, among other things, the impact of global interconnectedness on the nature of state sovereignty, particularly in light of challenges such as international terrorism, irregular migration, and transnational organized crime. By doing so, the chapter does not simply chart a demise of the state, as is sometimes assumed within studies of globalization. Instead, it proposes a more subtle, analytical and imaginary disconnection between crime, penality, and the nation state. Finally, the chapter addresses the rise of international forms of justice, particularly those articulated through human rights regimes, as well as the emerging challenges to them.
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4. International Law and Domestic Law
The interaction between international law and domestic (or national or ‘municipal’) law demonstrates the struggle between State sovereignty and the international legal order. While the international legal order seeks to organise international society in accordance with the general interests of the international community, State sovereignty can be used to protect a State against the intervention of international law into its national legal system. This chapter discusses theories about the relations between international law and national law; national law on the international plane; international law on the national plane; and examples of international law on the national plane.
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36. Criminology, punishment, and the state in a globalized society
Katja Franko
Questions of criminal law and criminal justice are increasingly becoming international, overcoming the confines of traditional jurisdictional constraints. This chapter traces these developments in order to examine what relevance criminology has had and may hold for understanding contemporary global issues. It examines, among other things, the impact of global interconnectedness on the nature of state sovereignty, particularly in light of challenges such as international terrorism, irregular migration, and transnational organized crime. By doing so, the chapter does not simply chart a demise of the state, as is sometimes assumed within studies of globalization. Instead, it proposes a more subtle, analytical, and imaginary disconnection between crime, penality, and the nation state. Finally, the chapter addresses the rise of international forms of justice, particularly those articulated through human rights regimes, as well as the emerging challenges to them.
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5. Sources of Law III: Effect of EU and International Law
Each Concentrate revision guide is packed with essential information, key cases, revision tips, exam Q&As, and more. This chapter discusses the effect of EU and international law. The UK is a signatory to multiple international institutions. Each of these institutions sets a framework for the UK to operate within, granting certain rights, benefits, and obligations. The most prominent institutions are the EU, the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (ECHR), and the United Nations. Although the UK’s continued involvement in these institutions will have a direct impact on the operation of UK law, relations with other states, whether they be good or bad, will also shape the face of the English legal system. The chapter then studies international law, considering basic matters such as the meaning of international law, the doctrine of state sovereignty, and the distinction between public and private international law.
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8. Jurisdiction
This chapter studies jurisdiction. The term ‘jurisdiction’ is generally understood by international lawyers as describing the extent, and limits, of the legal competence of a State, entity, or regulatory authority, to make, apply, and enforce legal rules with respect to persons, property, and other matters. Jurisdiction is the necessary corollary to State sovereignty under modern international law, for it represents the exercise of authority of that State in relation to conduct, or to consequences of events, that it deems itself competent to regulate. The quintessential areas of regulation that would be regarded as falling within the domestic jurisdiction of a State include the setting of conditions for the grant of nationality and the conditions under which aliens (non-nationals) may enter a State’s territory. The chapter then distinguishes the types of jurisdiction: prescriptive jurisdiction, enforcement jurisdiction, and adjudicative jurisdiction.
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9. Immunities
This chapter explores the concept of immunities. Immunity from jurisdiction describes the doctrines developed in domestic courts over time to avoid infringements on State sovereignty whenever possible. Generally speaking, immunities seek to prevent foreign courts from exercising jurisdiction regarding the conduct of another State, its agents, officials, or diplomatic representatives, as well as from adjudicating on inter-State disputes without their consent. Due in part to the historical conflation of State and sovereign that defined the scope of immunity, several mechanisms have been developed that allow various categories of officials of States to invoke immunity in the courts of another State. Often an exemption from local jurisdiction exists in relation to mundane violations such as driving offences or administrative matters. However, exemption from jurisdiction has important policy implications if the act in question constitutes an international crime.
