International Law Books

Introduction To Law And The Legal System 9th Edition

Frank A. Schubert

By: Houghton Mifflin Company Amazon Marketplace: 31 new & used starting at $68.01

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Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Requried Textbook for college course 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

This is a required text for a college course, "Law in American Society" However, it is very well written, easy to follow, and interesting.

Great Introductio to Law 5 out of 5 stars.
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This book is a great book to gauge how would you feel about going to law school.

The Challenge: Hamdan v. Rumsfeld and the Fight over Presidential Power

Jonathan Mahler

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Amazon Best of the Month, August 2008: There have by now been many insider accounts of the Bush Administration and its War on Terror. Jonathan Mahler's The Challenge: Hamdan v. Rumsfeld and the Fight over Presidential Power, on the other hand, is very much an outsider's account: the story of two lawyers and their attempt to scale the walls of the American government and overturn the system of military commissions set up to try the detainees at Guantanamo Bay. One observer called Hamdan v. Rumsfeld "the most important decision on presidential power and the rule of law, ever," and Mahler's focus on the odd-couple lawyers--the blustery, impulsive Navy JAG who made defending Hamdan his mission and the brilliant and tireless Indian immigrant's son who risked a meteoric career with his obsession with the case--and his ability to communicate the grave constitutional consequences of the case and the often bizarrely circuitous path they must take to reach the Supreme Court make for a thrilling and moving drama of justice, democracy, and the patriotism of challenging your own government. --Tom Nissley

Torture Team: Rumsfeld's Memo and the Betrayal of American Values

Philippe Sands

Amazon Price: $17.79 List Price: $26.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Palgrave Macmillan Amazon Marketplace: 41 new & used starting at $14.99

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On December 2, 2002 the U.S. Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, signed his name at the bottom of a document that listed eighteen techniques of interrogation--techniques that defied international definitions of torture. The Rumsfeld Memo authorized the controversial interrogation practices that later migrated to Guantanamo, Afghanistan, Abu Ghraib and elsewhere, as part of the policy of extraordinary rendition. From a behind-the-scenes vantage point, Phillipe Sands investigates how the Rumsfeld Memo set the stage for a divergence from the Geneva Convention and the Torture Convention and holds the individual gatekeepers in the Bush administration accountable for their failure to safeguard international law.

The Torture Team delves deep into the Bush administration to reveal:

· How the policy of abuse originated with Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney and George W. Bush, and was promoted by their most senior lawyers

· Personal accounts, through interview, of those most closely involved in the decisions

· How the Joint Chiefs and normal military decision-making processes were circumvented

· How Fox TV’s 24 contributed to torture planning

· How interrogation techniques were approved for use

· How the new techniques were used on Mohammed Al Qahtani, alleged to be “the 20th highjacker”

· How the senior lawyers who crafted the policy of abuse exposed themselves to the risk of war crimes charges

Fixing Failed States: A Framework for Rebuilding a Fractured World

Ashraf Ghani, Clare Lockhart

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Today between forty and sixty nations, home to over a billion people, have either collapsed or are teetering on the brink of failure. The world's worst problems--terrorism, drugs and human trafficking, absolute poverty, ethnic conflict, disease, genocide--originate in such states, and the international community has devoted billions of dollars to solving the problem. Yet by and large the effort has not succeeded.
Ashraf Ghani and Clare Lockhart have taken an active part in the effort to save failed states for many years, serving as World Bank officials, as advisers to the UN, and as high-level participants in the new government of Afghanistan. Now, in Fixing Failed States, they describe the issue--vividly and convincingly--offering an on-the-ground picture of why past efforts have not worked and advancing a groundbreaking new solution to this most pressing of global crises. Military force, while certainly necessary on occasion, cannot solve the fundamental problems, and humanitarian interventions cost billions yet do not leave capable states in their wake. Ghani and Lockhart argue that only an integrated state-building approach can heal these failing countries. As they explain, many of these countries already have the resources they need, if only we knew how to connect them to global knowledge and put them to work in the right way. Their state-building strategy, which assigns responsibility equally among the international community, national leaders, and citizens, maps out a clear path to political and economic stability. The authors provide a clear, practical framework for achieving these ends, supporting their case with first-hand examples of struggling territories such as Afghanistan, Sudan, Kosovo and Nepal as well as the world's success stories--Singapore, Ireland, and even the American South.
The battle against terror, poverty, climate change, and much more cannot be won unless we can save these nations. In Fixing Fixed States, two of the world's foremost authorities offer a way out of the current crisis--a framework for re-imagining the international system. It is a book that is unique in its essential optimism--an optimism that the authors have earned through their own substantial real-world efforts in failed states.

International Human Rights in Context: Law, Politics, Morals

Philip Alston, Ryan Goodman

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Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

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This widely acclaimed interdisciplinary coursebook presents a diverse range of carefully edited primary and secondary materials alongside extensive text, editorial commentary, and study questions. International Human Rights in Context, Third Edition, thoroughly covers the basic characteristics of international law; evolution of the human rights movement; civil, political, economic, and social rights; the humanitarian laws of war; globalization; self-determination; women's rights; universalism and cultural relativism; intergovernmental and nongovernmental institutions; implementation and enforcement; internal application of human rights norms; and the spread of constitutionalism.
Extensively revised and restructured, this third edition incorporates new themes and topics including human rights in relation to terrorism and national security; responsibility of non-state actors for human rights violations; recent substantial changes in sources and processes of international law; achieved and potential reform within UN human rights institutions; and theories about international organizations and their influence on state behavior. It is also accompanied by a website housing the Annex of Documents.
Its scope, challenging enquiries, and clarity make International Human Rights in Context, Third Edition, an indispensable resource for human rights students, scholars, advocates, and practitioners alike.

International Law, Norms, Actors, Process: A Problem-oriented Approach

Jeffrey L. Dunoff, Steven R. Ratner, David Wippman

Amazon Price: $93.55 List Price: $135.00 In stock soon. Order now to get in line. First come, first served. By: Aspen Publishers Amazon Marketplace: 16 new & used starting at $93.55

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Universal Human Rights in Theory and Practice

Jack Donnelly

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Praise for the first edition-

"Every once in a while a book appears that treats the leading issues of a subject in such a clear and challenging manner that it becomes central to understanding that subject. Universal Human Rights in Theory and Practice is just such a book. . . . Donnelly's interpretations are clear and argued with zest."-American Political Science Review

"This wide-ranging book looks at all aspects of human rights, drawing upon political theory, sociology, and international relations as well as international law. . . . [Jack Donnelly] deals successfully with two of the principal challenges to the notion of the universality of human rights: the argument that some non-Western societies are not subject to Western norms, and the claim that economic development may require the sacrifice of some human rights."-Foreign Affairs

In a thoroughly revised edition of Universal Human Rights in Theory and Practice (more than half of the material is new), Jack Donnelly elaborates a theory of human rights, addresses arguments of cultural relativism, and explores the efficacy of bilateral and multilateral international action. Entirely new chapters address prominent post-Cold War issues including humanitarian intervention, democracy and human rights, "Asian values," group rights, and discrimination against sexual minorities.

Illicit: How Smugglers, Traffickers, and Copycats are Hijacking the Global Economy

Moises Naim

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Total reviews: 19 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

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Illicit activities are exploding worldwide. The onslaught of globalization has unleashed a tidal wave of bad stuff--everything from arms trafficking, human smuggling, and money laundering to music bootlegging. Here is the dark side of globalization: the mushrooming underground economy. Moisés Naím explores this murky world in his book Illicit. Naím is the editor of the relaunched magazine Foreign Policy and a former executive director of the World Bank and Minister of Trade and Industry of Venezuela. In Illicit, he unties the connections between the Colombian cocaine dealer, the New York banker steering money to offshore tax havens, the Albanian forcing women into prostitution, and the Chinese market stall-holder selling counterfeit DVDs.

Naím reports that legitimate global trade has doubled since 1990 from $5 to $10 trillion. Meanwhile, money laundering has gone up tenfold, exceeding $1 trillion a year. Smuggling and money laundering have always existed, but Naím shows how they have increased at a staggering pace in the wake of globalization, despite new government controls since 9/11. The main culprits are the collapse of the Iron Curtain and state deregulation. As the reach of organized crime has expanded, governments have failed to keep up. Naím illustrates the problems with stories about A.Q. Khan, the father of Pakistan's atomic bomb who sold nuclear technology to North Korea and Libya; Walter C. Anderson, an American who was accused of hiding $450 million in offshore accounts to evade taxes; and Vladimir Montesinos, the Peruvian intelligence czar who is on trial for trafficking drugs and arms. The book, while a little dry, will be interesting to policy buffs and aspiring crooks alike. --Alex Roslin

Fundamental Perspectives on International Law

William R. Slomanson

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Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

The most amazing book on International Law 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 10 people found this review helpful.

The author has achieved a feat of Herculean proportions by his extremely lucid and perspicacious analysis of the very difficult and inaccessible subject of International law. International law is next only to Qunatum Field Theory in its profundity and deep conceptual underpinnings. The very fact that an ignoramus like me can understand and appreciate this work of genius goes to show that everyone even remotely interested in the field should read this book.

Editorial Review:

See international law in action with FUNDAMENTAL PERSPECTIVES ON INTERNATIONAL LAW! Comprehensive yet easy-to-understand, this political science text enhances your understanding of key topics in international law through a mix of cases, articles, documents, text, charts, tables, and questions. Edited cases followed by notes and questions illustrate major concepts and help you understand cases from many countries. The author’s continually updated website contains recent cases, maps, career opportunities, links to documents, and a research guide making it easy for you stay on top of recent updates in the field.

A Matter of Interpretation: Federal Courts and the Law (The University Center for Human Values Series)

Antonin Scalia

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We are all familiar with the image of the immensely clever judge who discerns the best rule of common law for the case at hand. According to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, a judge like this can maneuver through earlier cases to achieve the desired aim--"distinguishing one prior case on his left, straight-arming another one on his right, high-stepping away from another precedent about to tackle him from the rear, until (bravo!) he reaches the goal--good law." But is this common-law mindset, which is appropriate in its place, suitable also in statutory and constitutional interpretation? In a witty and trenchant essay, Justice Scalia answers this question with a resounding negative.

In exploring the neglected art of statutory interpretation, Scalia urges that judges resist the temptation to use legislative intention and legislative history. In his view, it is incompatible with democratic government to allow the meaning of a statute to be determined by what the judges think the lawgivers meant rather than by what the legislature actually promulgated. Eschewing the judicial lawmaking that is the essence of common law, judges should interpret statutes and regulations by focusing on the text itself. Scalia then extends this principle to constitutional law. He proposes that we abandon the notion of an everchanging Constitution and pay attention to the Constitution's original meaning. Although not subscribing to the "strict constructionism" that would prevent applying the Constitution to modern circumstances, Scalia emphatically rejects the idea that judges can properly "smuggle" in new rights or deny old rights by using the Due Process Clause, for instance. In fact, such judicial discretion might lead to the destruction of the Bill of Rights if a majority of the judges ever wished to reach that most undesirable of goals.

This essay is followed by four commentaries by Professors Gordon Wood, Laurence Tribe, Mary Ann Glendon, and Ronald Dworkin, who engage Justice Scalia's ideas about judicial interpretation from varying standpoints.