Print Price: $90.00

Format:
Paperback
736 pp.
155 mm x 234 mm

ISBN-13:
9780199399499

Publication date:
April 2016

Imprint: OUP US

Law and Practice of the United Nations

Second Edition

Simon Chesterman, Ian Johnstone and David M. Malone

Law and Practice of the United Nations: Documents and Commentary combines primary materials with expert commentary demonstrating the interaction between law and practice in the UN organization, as well as the possibilities and limitations of multilateral institutions in general. Each chapter begins with a short introductory essay describing how the documents that ensue illustrate a set of legal, institutional, and political issues relevant to the practice of diplomacy and the development of public international law through the United Nations. Each chapter also includes questions to guide discussion of the primary materials, and a brief bibliography to facilitate further research on the subject.

This second edition addresses the most challenging issues confronting the United Nations and the global community today, from terrorism to climate change, from poverty to nuclear proliferation. New features include hypothetical fact scenarios to test the understanding of concepts in each chapter. This edition contains expanded author commentary, while maintaining the focus on primary materials. Such materials enable a realistic presentation of the work of international diplomacy: the negotiation, interpretation and application of such texts are an important part of what actually takes place at the United Nations and other international organizations.

This work is ideal for courses on the United Nations or International Organizations, taught in both law and international relations programs.

Readership : Scholars and students of international law; teachers and students specializing in courses on the United Nations or International Organizations.

Reviews

• "This book is overdue and immensely valuable. The United Nations used to merit a couple of chapters in an often dry-as-dust casebook on international organizations generally, chapters devoted to the law of the Charter but never the political practice that illuminates it and makes it both trying and occasionally triumphant. Here, at last, is a volume entirely devoted to the United Nations for scholars of both international law and international relations, in an accessible format with challenging issues at every turn."
  
  --Anne-Marie Slaughter, President and CEO of the New America Foundation
  
  
• "International lawyers everywhere should rejoice that Thomas Franck, along with colleagues Simon Chesterman and David Malone, have at last made widely available the primary documents that have long formed the backbone of Franck's renowned 'UN Law' course. Their casebook - which examines through a legal lens the relevance, capacity, practice, and accountability of the UN - stresses the interaction between law and politics without confusing the two. From its opening introductory section discussing, among other things, why the UN Charter ought to be regarded as a 'constitution', to its closing chapter devoted to the prospects for UN reform, this is a book that makes immediate and concrete what it means to have an international rule of law."
  
  --Jose E. Alvarez, Hamilton Fish Professor of International Law & Diplomacy, Columbia Law School
  
  
• "Law and Practice of the United Nations is part casebook, part textbook and, throughout, a profound set of reflections on the past, present and future of the UN as a 'constitutional' framework for global governance. It is designed for students, but there is no specialist on the UN who would not learn from this impressive volume."
  
  --Michael W. Doyle, Director, Columbia Global Policy Initiative, and University Professor, Columbia University
  
  
• [.rt error 1]
• "The book's central strength is that it situates its legal analysis in the context of policy and practice. The selection of cases and documents are excellent - effectively illustrating the impact of law on practice and, more generally, the interaction between law and politics in international affairs. The overall scope and content are ideal for both law and non-law students (at the graduate level)."
  
  --Ian Johnstone, Associate Professor of International Law, The Fletcher School, Tufts University
  
  
• "The strengths of the book are considerable, including its broad focus on the full range of UN activities and issues, its inclusion of both historical material and current developments, its clear organizational structure, and its good and lively commentary."
  
  --Jane Stromseth, Professor of Law, Georgetown University Law Center
  
  
• "This book is overdue and immensely valuable. The United Nations used to merit a couple of chapters in an often dry-as-dust casebook on international organizations generally, chapters devoted to the law of the Charter but never the political practice that illuminates it and makes it both trying and occasionally triumphant. Here, at last, is a volume entirely devoted to the United Nations for scholars of both international law and international relations, in an accessible format with challenging issues at every turn."
  
  --Anne-Marie Slaughter, President and CEO of the New America Foundation
  
  
• "International lawyers everywhere should rejoice that Thomas Franck, along with colleagues Simon Chesterman and David Malone, have at last made widely available the primary documents that have long formed the backbone of Franck's renowned 'UN Law' course. Their casebook - which examines through a legal lens the relevance, capacity, practice, and accountability of the UN - stresses the interaction between law and politics without confusing the two. From its opening introductory section discussing, among other things, why the UN Charter ought to be regarded as a 'constitution', to its closing chapter devoted to the prospects for UN reform, this is a book that makes immediate and concrete what it means to have an international rule of law."
  
  --Jose E. Alvarez, Hamilton Fish Professor of International Law & Diplomacy, Columbia Law School
  
  
• "Law and Practice of the United Nations is part casebook, part textbook and, throughout, a profound set of reflections on the past, present and future of the UN as a 'constitutional' framework for global governance. It is designed for students, but there is no specialist on the UN who would not learn from this impressive volume."
  
  --Michael W. Doyle, Harold Brown Professor of International Affairs, Law and Political Science, Columbia University
  
  
• [.rt error 1]
• "The strengths of the book are considerable, including its broad focus on the full range of UN activities and issues, its inclusion of both historical material and current developments, its clear organizational structure, and its good and lively commentary."
  
  --Jane Stromseth, Professor of Law and Director, Human Rights Institute, Georgetown University Law Center