In Advanced Introduction to International Conflict and Security Law, Nigel D. White takes on the challenging task of providing a concise introduction to the law of international conflict and security. As White notes in the book's preface, the scope of most international law topics is now so vast that authors are forced to choose between writing books that offer thin, shallow coverage or writing compendious, unwieldy tomes. White expresses his intention to resolve this challenge and to address the uniquely politicized nature of this branch of international law by emphasizing normative frameworks rather than surveying specific legal rules. In practice, this proves to be a difficult balance to strike, and the book's six substantive chapters veer unevenly between racing through lists of legal rules, retreating into vague generalities, and successfully striking the balance between depth and conciseness.
Chapter 2's overview of arms control law is compellingly argued but light on information about the underlying law. White contrasts the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention and the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention, which engage in lawmaking, with the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which is more accurately understood as a political bargain between existing nuclear powers. White characterizes arms control law as an especially politicized area, where the United Nations (UN) is able to take action against non-State actors and undisputed threats like North Korea, but not against major powers or States that have major powers’ backing.
Chapter 3 combines a welcome increase in legal complexity with a similar focus on politicization, emphasizing how politics undermine the prohibition on the use of force established by jus cogens norms and Article 2(4) of the UN Charter. White describes how both the United States (US) and Russia have routinely violated the prohibition on the use of force, openly asserting their rights to military intervention during the Cold War and ignoring the international condemnation of the war on terror and the invasion of Ukraine. White identifies the right to self-defense established by Article 51 of the UN Charter as a particular challenge to enforcing the prohibition on the use of force. Mutual claims of preemptive self-defense can easily spiral into an arms race as seen between the US and Russia during the Cold War and between India and Pakistan today. Moreover, it can be challenging to determine when and how to apply preemptive self-defense to modern security threats, such as attacks by non-State actors and cyberattacks.
In Chapter 4, White provides an impressively succinct and thorough survey of the history, present, and potential future of the regulation of private violence. White points out that, historically, States routinely delegated the use of force to private actors, such as privateers and the colonialist English and Dutch East India Companies. However, over time, private combatants were gradually subsumed into the State's armed forces, and modern international law typically only governs combatants who are under the effective control of a State. This has resulted in an absence of international legal liability for private contractors who participate in humanitarian law violations, such as the torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib or the massacre of civilians at Nisour Square. Increasingly, international organizations seek to create new norms to fill this gap, such as the International Committee of the Red Cross's Montreux Document or the UN's Draft Convention on Private Military and Security Companies.
In Chapter 5, White describes and critiques the pragmatist, realist approach to collective security, which suggests that law is cynically manipulated to justify political goals. White cites numerous examples where this appears to be the case, including the extensive manipulation of the UN's legal framework to legitimize the Korean War and the current failure to intervene in the Syrian Civil War. Despite this, White rejects a purely realist approach to collective security. While he believes that the UN can and should do more to enforce humanitarian law, he nevertheless argues that the UN General Assembly meaningfully asserts the importance of law as an independent force through its willingness to condemn major powers’ violations of international law.
Unfortunately, the book's steadily increasing level of detail means that Chapter 5 often feels disjointed, and Chapter 6 descends into an overwhelming laundry list of the legal norms governing the law of armed conflict. In the space of forty-two pages, Chapter 6 races through discussions of reciprocity, military necessity, proportionality, humanitarian law, war crimes, belligerent occupation, and more. While the individual examples are well chosen and clearly explained, the overwhelming number of legal norms discussed means that the chapter can cover each norm only superficially, and the sheer volume is difficult to absorb.
Chapter 7 provides a by-now welcome return to a more abstract discussion of the currently developing jus post bellum norms, which address the unique challenges of post-conflict States. Although this area of law is still developing, White cites as promising recent UN statements highlighting the importance of self-determination, emphasizing the obligations of peacekeepers to practice due diligence against human rights abuses, and rejecting blanket amnesties.
Ultimately, White suggests that international conflict and security law need significant reform to adapt to modern conflicts. The law is still grappling with how to address new technologies such as drones and cyberattacks. More fundamentally, the law does not adequately address modern conflicts’ political structure. It typically assumes a reciprocal bargain between two States, each complying with the law so that the other will also comply. However, modern conflicts often include non-State actors, such as armed insurgents and private contractors who do not fit easily within the reciprocity framework. Additionally, even in inter-State conflicts, some States ignore and undermine reciprocity as when Russia's legal violations provoked a cycle of retaliation with Ukraine. White argues that international conflict and security law must move beyond relying on reciprocity to incorporate external compliance mechanisms.
Overall, White's depth and breadth of expertise is clear, but it is less clear that it is possible to summarize the depth and complexity of international conflict and security law in the Advanced Introduction format. White does an impressive job of explaining dense topics clearly and compellingly. However, he never quite finds a way to achieve adequate legal depth while maintaining a manageable volume of new information. Researchers interested in an introduction to the topics covered in this book might be better served by reading his scholarly articles.
