This introductory chapter provides the background and contextual information to ground the book, including its objectives, significance, and relevance of the subject matter, the guiding research questions to be addressed, the nature of the ECOWAS Court’s human rights mandate, the normative and analytical frameworks used, and the methodology employed in selecting the cases analysed.

This chapter is about Rudnik and Moiseenko’s arraignment at the Shanghai Special District Court in August 1931, where it became clear that the Guomindang government was going to use any and all measures to ensure the couple was turned over to them for punishment. Their lawyer, a European with a lot of experience in the Shanghai courts (whose fees were paid for by the Comintern), grew increasingly pessimistic about his ability to protect them from this fate.

This first substantive chapter introduces readers to Truth Commissions as an institution and their relationship with international law; the core problem examined in the book, and the overall argument; the main debates in scholarship and practice, which frame the book’s intervention; and the book’s methodological approach and contribution. The chapter begins with an overview of Truth Commissions, their contemporary role, and historical transformation. The discussion focuses on how the jurisprudential tradition of ‘jurisdictional thought’ offers a way of examining how Truth Commissions have ‘authorized’ their accounts of violent events as the truth by drawing on different dimensions of international law. The chapter explains how the book approaches the analysis of Truth Commissions through the study of their representations of truth and authority. This involves setting out the book’s theoretical orientation, which includes the jurisprudence of jurisdictional thought, law and humanities scholarship, and the theory and history of international law; and explaining the importance of the author’s in-country visits and archival research.

The book concludes with a short chapter that invites readers to re-consider the relationship between Truth Commissions and international law. It emphasizes the consequences of this relationship for the quality of state-society relations in the aftermath of violent conflict. It also highlights the importance of paying attention to who is authorizing the inclusion of local cultural expressions of violent conflict in the accounts produced by Truth Commission; who benefits from such inclusions; and what ends are being served.

This chapter begins by introducing international administrative tribunals – independent, judicial, subsidiary organs of international organizations, competent to compulsorily adjudicate employment-related disputes involving international officials – that whilst ubiquitous, are implied, but not expressly stated, by the treaty-basis of all multilateral institutions. Second, the legal characteristics of international administrative tribunals are identified, namely: (1) Capacity to establish administrative tribunals is treaty-based; (2) Administrative tribunals possess an independent and judicial status; and (3) The jurisdiction of administrative tribunals is determined by their statute. Third, the chapter considers the ability – and related approach – of administrative tribunals to impose administrative relief upon, and financial awards against, the employing international organization. Fourth, and in conclusion, this legal basis of international administrative tribunals is restated.

This chapter explores the concepts of territory and jurisdiction in the Greek and Roman worlds, challenging modern assumptions rooted in the state-centric, post-Westphalian model of international law. It argues that ancient understandings of space, sovereignty and legal authority were fluid, overlapping and shaped by networks of cities, trade routes and personal affiliations rather than fixed territorial boundaries. The chapter examines how jurisdiction operated through principles of personality and polity, with legal pluralism prevailing across empires. Roman legal innovations, such as the concept of jus gentium and the universal jurisdiction of emperors, are analysed as early forms of supranational legal authority. The chapter also addresses the limits of jurisdiction, including the treatment of pirates and the emergence of humanistic legal protections. By tracing the evolution of spatial and legal thought from the polis to the Roman Empire and into late Antiquity, the chapter reveals how ancient practices laid conceptual foundations for modern international law while remaining distinct in form and function.

This chapter analyses the concept of jurisdiction, a central feature of territorial sovereignty. The principle of domestic jurisdiction is explained, followed by an examination of the various bases upon which criminal jurisdiction may be exercised by states under international law. The primary basis is the territorial principle, which clearly reflects the key principle of territorial sovereignty. However, jurisdiction may also be exercised on the grounds of nationality, a concept which is domestically defined but which may require international acceptance. Other grounds include the passive personality principle, the protective principle and the universality principle. In terms of the latter, examples may include war crimes and crimes against humanity. In addition, treaties may provide for jurisdiction beyond the accepted principles with regard to drug trafficking and slavery, the taking of hostages and hijacking. The chapter also discusses the effect of the US Alien Tort Statute in the framework of universal jurisdiction. The question of extraterritorial jurisdiction is also noted.

Based on an in-depth analysis of a few selected cases of commercial dispute and litigation, this chapter illuminates the functioning of the complex and competing legal systems and the mechanisms of dispute resolution among merchants in Surat in western India and Zanzibar in East Africa during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It explores the dynamics of this legal space, the endurance of legal plurality and qualitative changes in it over the period under review. It critically examines the perceived binary between the legal plurality of the pre-colonial period and the legal uniformity and centralization of the colonial period. The chapter argues that merchants usually sought to resolve their commercial disputes through informal negotiations, petitions, arbitration and legal proceedings in courts of law. The analysis of commercial disputes show that despite the emergence of the European (English) colonial legal system across the Indian Ocean arena in the nineteenth century and the colonial state’s push to make the law uniform and implement a single legal system, the normative and customary mechanisms of adjudicating commercial disputes endured in the colonial period.

This chapter explores the legacies of indenture for international law in Asia through a survey of the existing scholarship and points to new directions for research. Focusing on indentured labor from India, which comprised the majority of labourers recruited under this system in the nineteenth and early twentieth century, it shows how indenture shifted definitions of emigrants and foreigners, shaped discourses on welfare in migration, and left its mark on international relations as they emerged in the aftermath of the two world wars. The chapter also discusses how questions of nationality and citizenship in the postcolonial period often overlooked the plight of the descendents of indenture in Asia, and concludes with speculations on what the new form of indenture is and the limits of drawing these historical analogies.

Arendt’s engagement with the Eichmann trial raises questions that lie at the theoretical heart of international criminal justice. Do criminal trials of atrocity crimes (“core crimes”) differ in their aims from trials for ordinary domestic law crimes? Does it even make sense to try individuals for collective crimes? What is the point of courts jumping into the political maelstrom of mass violence? This chapter addresses these questions. It examines Arendt’s defense of the Eichmann trial against charges of unfairness and illegitimacy. It addresses Antony Duff’s argument that the moral community of “humanity” has no authority to stage criminal trials, as well as Martti Koskenniemi’s critique of Arendt’s individualist focus. Arendt rejected the concept of collective criminal guilt, although she endorsed a concept of collective political responsibility; the chapter analyzes this distinction. An additional question is whether Arendt’s thinking sheds light on the modern practices of international criminal law. Here, the verdict is mixed. Arendt strongly objected to the political and pedagogical aims of criminal trials, which I argue is a mistake on her part, even on her own terms. The radical ambitions of international criminal justice – to save history against inevitable future denialism, and to demystify extreme political violence – are actually Arendt’s as well, whether or not she recognized it.

International criminal law is the branch of public international law under which individuals may be held criminally responsible for the offences of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression. International criminal law seeks to prevent impunity by holding accountable those individuals who are responsible for serious violations of international criminal law. This chapter begins with the history of international criminal law, starting with the aftermath of the First and Second World Wars, and ending with the creation of a spate of international criminal courts and tribunals in recent decades. The chapter then covers substantive aspects of international criminal law, namely the crime of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression. Finally, the chapter covers key procedural aspects of international criminal law, including the jurisdiction of international courts and tribunals, the admissibility of cases, modes of liability, and immunities. The International Criminal Court is a focal point in this chapter

This chapter introduces the three different manifestations of jurisdiction: enforcement jurisdiction, prescriptive jurisdiction, and adjudicative jurisdiction. The chapter focuses on the extent to which states may exercise jurisdiction in relation to persons, property, and acts that are outside of (or partially outside of) their own territory. With respect to prescriptive jurisdiction, the chapter introduces five different principles that are used to justify the extra-territorial application of legislation: the territoriality principle, the nationality principle, the personality principle, the protective principle, and the universality principle.

This Chapter examines whether and to what extent WTO members can be accountable for applying security measures before international adjudicators and how the invocation of security exceptions can impact the international courts’ or tribunals’ proceedings. The idea of balancing free trade and national security is bound to substantiate itself in a compression of the right to sovereignty, which can be assessed through the good faith review or the use of a necessity test. The investigation of the meaning and mechanisms of these tests and the scope of discretion that should be granted to the decisions of WTO members in their national security matters allows for establishing the framework for reviewing security exceptions.

Chapter 1 introduces the key research question of whether the European Court of Human Rights has the appropriate equipment to respond to authoritarian populism in its position of ultimate interpreter of the European Convention on Human Rights. It sets out the analytical and disciplinary framework, situates the project in a broader field of scholarship and summarizes the upcoming s.