Reading List - Public International Law

[D3] Sources of Public International Law/IL Theory

Bin Cheng, General Principles of Law as Applied by International Courts and Tribunals (Cambridge University Press, 1987).

W R Bisschop, ‘Sources of International Law’ (1940) 26 Transactions of the Grotius Society 235.

Basak Baglayan, ‘Searching for Human Rights Norms for Corporate Conduct in Domestic Jurisprudence: A Bottom-Up Approach to International Law’ (2018) 36(4) Nordic Journal of Human Rights 371.

Phillp Lochner, ‘Some Limits on the Application of Social Science Research in the Legal Process’ [1973] (4) Law and the Social Order 815.

Mathias Forteau, ‘Comparative International Law Within, Not Against, International Law: Lessons from the International Law Commission’ (2015) 109 American Journal of International Law 498

Broude, Tomer and Yuval Shany (eds), The Shifting Allocation of Authority in International Law: Considering Sovereignty, Supremacy and Subsidiarity (Hart Publishing, 2008).

Broude, Tomer, ‘Fragmentation(s) of International Law: On Normative Integration as Authority Allocation’ in Tomer Broude and Yuval Shany, The Shifting Allocation of Authority in International Law (Hart Publishing, 2008).

Buchan, Russell, ‘A Clash of Normativities: International Society and International Community’ (2008) 10(1) International Community Law Review 3.

Valentina Vadi, ‘Critical Comparisons: The Role of Comparative Law in Investment Treaty Arbitration’ (2010) 39 Denver Journal of International Law and Policy 67.

Jan Klabbers, ‘Qatar v Bahrain: The Concept of “Treaty” in International Law’ (1995) 33(3) Archiv des Völkerrechts 361.

Robert Caranta, ‘Book Review: Anne-Marie Slaughter, Alec Stone Sweet, Joseph HH Weiler (eds), The European Courts and National Courts, Hart Publishing, 1998, xlii + 400 pages, Hardback, £37, 50.’ (1999) 6(1) Maastricht Journal of European and Comparative Law 100.

Mark Pollack, ‘Who Supports International Law and Why? The United States, the European Union and the International Legal Order’ (2015) 13 International Journal of Constitutional Law 873.

Anne-Marie Slaughter, 'A Global Community of Courts' (2003) 44 Harvard International Law Journal 191.

Myres McDougal and W Michael Reisman, International Law on Contemporary Perspective: The Public Order of the World Community, Cases and Materials (Foundation Press, 1981).

Case Concerning Ahmadou Sadio Diallo (Republic of Guinea v Democratic Republic of the Congo), Declaration of Judge Greenwood, [2012] ICJ Rep 391.

Panos Merkouris, ‘Interpreting the Customary Rules on Interpretation’ (2017) 19(1) International Community Law Review 126.

Ralf Michaels, ‘Law and Recognition – Towards a Relational Concept of Law’ in Nicole Roughan and Andrew Halpin (eds), In Pursuit of Pluralist Jurisprudence (Cambridge University Press, 2017) 90.

Benedict Kingsbury, ‘Legal Positivism as Normative Politics: International Society, Balance of Power and Lassa Oppenheim’s Positive International Law’ (2002) 13(2) European Journal of International Law 401.

Hersch Lauterpacht, ‘Westlake and Present Day International Law’ (1925) 15 Economica 307.

Juliette McIntyre, ‘Same Pod, Different Peas: The Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties in Australian and Canadian Courts’ (2017) 3 Canadian Journal of Comparative and Contemporary Law 19.

James Crawford, ‘The Impossibility of Multilateralism’ (2013) 365 Recueil des Cours 183.

James Crawford, ‘Universality of International Law’ (2013) 365 Recueil des Cours 230.

James Crawford, Brownlie’s Principles of Public International Law (Oxford University Press, 2012).

James Crawford, ‘Fragmentation, Proliferation and “Self-Contained Regimes”’ (2013) 365 Recueil des Cours 205.

James Crawford, ‘Institutions above the Law? The Security Council’ (2013) 365 Recueil des Cours 296.

James Crawford and Penelope Nevill, ‘Relations between International Courts and Tribunals: The ‘Regime Problem’ in Margaret Young (ed), Regime Interaction in International Law: Facing Fragmentation (Cambridge University Press, 2012) 235.

Philip C Jessup, Transnational Law (Yale University Press, 1956).

C Wilfred Jenks, ‘The Significance Today of Lorimer’s “Ultimate Problem of International Jurisprudence”’ (1940) 26 Transactions of the Grotius Society: Problems of Peace and War 35.

Richard Falk, ‘International Jurisdiction: Horizontal and Vertical Conceptions of Legal Order’ (1959) 32 Temple Law Quarterly 295.

Joost Pauwelyn, Conflict of Norms in Public International Law: How WTO Law Relates to Other Rules of International Law (Cambridge University Press, 2003).

Stephan Schill and Katrine Tvede, ‘Mainstreaming Investment Treaty Jurisprudence’ (2015) 14 Law Practice of International Courts and Tribunals 94.

Bruno Simma, "Universality of International Law from the Perspective of a Practitioner" (2009) 20 European Journal of International Law 265.

Bruno Simma and D Pulkowski, ‘Of Planets and the Universe: Self Contained Regimes in International Law’ (2006) 17(3) European Journal of International Law 483.

Eileen Denza, ‘The Relationship between International Law and National Law’ in Malcom Evans, International Law (Oxford University Press, 5th ed, 2018) 383.

Martti Koskenniemi, ‘Law, Teleology and International Relations: An Essay in Counterdisciplinarity’ (2012) 26 International Relations 3.

Martti Koskenniemi, ‘The Normative Force of Habit: International Custom and Social Theory’ (1990) 1 Finnish Yearbook of International Law 7.

Martti Koskenniemi, ‘What for Sovereignty Now’ (2011) 1 Asian Journal of International Law 61,

Martti Koskenniemi, The Gentler Civilizer of Nations: The Rise and Fall of International Law 1870-1960 (Cambridge University Press, 2001)

Martti Koskenniemi, The Gentle Civilizer of Nations: The Rise and Fall of International Law (Cambridge University Press, 2002).

Martti Koskenniemi, ‘Fragmentation of International Law: Topic (a): The function and scope of the lex specialis and the question of ‘self-contained regimes: an outline’ (International Law Commission, 2001) <https://legal.un.org/ilc/sessions/55/pdfs/fragmentation_outline.pdf>. 

Odile Ammann, ‘International Law in Domestic Courts Through an Empirical Lens: The Swiss Federal Tribunal’s Practice of International Law in Figures’ (2018) 28 Swiss Review of International and European Law 489.

Cedric Ryngaert, ‘Sources of International Law in Domestic Law: Relationships Between International and Municipal Law Sources’ in Samantha Besson and Jean d’Aspremont, The Oxford Handbook of the Sources of International Law (Oxford University Press, 2017).

Madeline Morris, ‘Universal Jurisdiction in a Divided World: Conference Remarks’ (2001) 35 New England Law Review 337.

Diane Desierto and Colin Gillespie, ‘A Modern Integrated Paradigm for International Responsibility Arising From Violations of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights’ (2014) 3(2) Cambridge Journal of International and Comparative Law 556.

Massimo Lando, ‘Intimations of Unconstitutionality: The Supremacy of International Law and Judgment 238/2014 of the Italian Constitutional Court’ (2015) 78(6) Modern Law Review 1028.

Seyed Ali Sadat-Akhavi, Methods of Resolving Conflicts between Treaties (Nijhoff Brill, 2003).

Thomas Schultz, Transnational Legality: Stateless Law and International Arbitration (Oxford University Press, 2014)

Thomas Schultz and Niccolo Ridi, ‘Comity and International Courts and Tribunals’ (2017) 50 Cornell International Law Journal 577.

Suzanne Katzenstein, ‘International Adjudication and Custom Breaking by Domestic Courts’ (2012) 62(3) Duke Law Journal 671.

Antonio Tzanokopoulos et al, ‘Study Group on Principles of the Engagement of Domestic Courts with International Law’ (2016) 77 International Law Association Reports of Conferences 996.

Amos Enabulele, ‘Multilateral Treaties and the Effects of the Universality of Customs on State Consent’ (2015) 13 New Zealand Yearbook of International Law 3,.

Andre Nollkaemper, ‘The Independence of the Domestic Judiciary in International Law’ (2006) 17 Finnish Yearbook of International Law 261.

Kanishka Jayasuriya, Reconstituting the Global Liberal Order: Legitimacy and Regulation (Routledge, 2005).

Tom Bingham, ‘Preface’ in Shaheed Fatima, Using International Law in Domestic Courts (Bloomsbury, 2005).

Eibe Riedel, ‘Standards and Sources: Farewell to the Exclusivity of the Sources Triad in International Law?’ (1991) 2 European Journal of International Law 58.

Antonio Tzanakopoulos and Christian Tams, ‘Introduction: Domestic Courts as Agents of Development of International Law’ (2013) 26(3) Leiden Journal of International Law 531.

Josef Ostransky, ‘Book Review: Is International Law International? By Anthea Roberts, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017’ (2019) 32 Leiden Journal of International Law 193.

Anthea Roberts, ‘Comparative International Law? The Role of National Courts in Creating and Enforcing International Law’ (2015) 60(1) International and Comparative Law Quarterly 57.

Georg Schwarzenberger, ‘The Inductive Approach to International Law’ (1947) 60(4) Harvard Law Review 539.

Christine Chinkin and Alan Boyle, The Making of International Law (Oxford University Press, 2007).

Hersch Lauterpacht, ‘Decisions of Municipal Courts as Source of International Law’ (1929) 10 British Yearbook of International Law 65.

Kenneth Abbott and Duncan Snidal, ‘Hard and Soft Law in International Governance’ (2000) 54(3) International Organization 421.

Alexander Gibson, ‘Soft Law – Functions and Value in International Environmental Law’ (2019) 28 Blackstone’s Onyx Journal 106.

Boaventura de Sousa Santos, Toward a New Legal Common Sense (Butterworths, 2nd ed, 2002).

Alec Stone Sweet, ‘Judicialization and the Construction of Governance’ (1999) 32(2) Comparative Political Studies 147.

Osnat Schwartz, ‘International Law and National Courts: Between Mutual Empowerment and Mutual Weakening’ (2015) 23 Cardozo Journal of International and Comparative Law 587.

Timothy Endicott, ‘Comity Among Authorities’ (2015) 68 Current Legal Problems 1.

Kevin Crow, ‘Book Review: Is International Law International? By Anthea Roberts, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017’ (2018) 21 Journal of International Economic Law 739.

Wayne Sandholtz, ‘How Domestic Courts Use International Law’ (2015) 38(2) Fordham International Law Journal 595.

Sondre Torp Helmersen, ‘Scholarly-Judicial Dialogue in International Law’ (2017) Law and Practice of International Courts and Tribunals 464.

Erika de Wet and Jure Vidmar, ‘Conflicts between international paradigms: Hierarchy versus systemic integration’ (2013) 2(2) Global Constitutionalism 196.

Michael Longo, ‘Reconceptualizing Public International Law: Convergence with the European Union Model’ (2002) 25(1) UNSW Law Journal 71.

Ingo Venzke, How Interpretation Makes International Law (Oxford University Press, 2012).

Letizia Lo Giacco, ‘Swinging between finding and justification: judicial citation and international law-making’ (2017) 6(1) Cambridge International Law Journal 27.

Anne-Marie Slaughter and William Burke-White, ‘The Future of International Law is Domestic (Or the European Way of Law)’ (2006) 47 Harvard International Law Journal 327.

Anne-Marie Slaughter, ‘Judicial Globalization’ (2000) 40 Virginia Journal of International Law 1103. 

Andre Nollkaemper and Janne Nijman (eds), New Perspectives on the Divide Between National and International Law (Oxford University Press, 2007).

Philip Allott, ‘The Emerging Universal Legal System’ in Andre Nollkaemper and Janne Nijman (eds), New Perspectives on the Divide Between National and International Law (Oxford University Press, 2007) 63.

Charles Leben, The Advancement of International Law (Hart Publishing, 2010).

Samantha Besson, ‘International Law’ Relative Authority’ (2015) 6 Jurisprudence 169.

Jan Klabbers, ‘Law-Making and Constitutionalism’ in Jan Klabbers, Anne Peters, and Geir Ulfstein (eds), The Constitutionalization of International Law (Oxford University Press, 2009) 81.

Michael Kirby, ‘Transnational Judicial Dialogue: Internationalisation of Law and Australian Judges’ (2008) 9 Melbourne Journal of International Law 171.

Rosalyn Higgins, Problems and Processes: International Law and How We Use it (Clarendon Press, 1995)

Aldo Borda, ‘A Formal Approach to Article 38(1)(d) of the ICJ Statute from the Perspective of the International Criminal Courts and Tribunals’ (2013) 24(2) European Journal of International Law 649. 

Marco Benatar, ‘International Law, Domestic Lenses’ (2014) 3(2) Cambridge International Law Journal 357.

Anthony D’Amato, ‘Groundwork for International Law’ (2014) 108(4) American Journal of International Law 650.

Hillary Charlesworth, ‘International Law: A Discipline of Crisis’ (2002) 65(3) Modern Law Review 377.

Keith Culver and Michael Giudice, ‘An Inter-Institutional Theory’ in Keith Culver and Michael Giudice (eds), Legality’s Borders: An Essay in General Jurisprudence (Oxford University Press, 2010) 111.

Keith Culver and Michael Giudice, ‘Claims to Authority, Legal Systems, and Dynamic Social Phenomena’ in Roger Cotterrell and Maksymilian Del Mar, Authority in Transnational Legal Theory (Edward-Elgar Publishing, 2016) 49.

Gareth Davies, ‘Subsidiarity as a Method of Policy Centralization’ in Tomer Broude and Yuval Shany (eds), The Shifting Allocation of Authority in International Law (Hart Publishing, 2008).

Jean D’Aspremont, ‘The Multidimensional Process of Interpretation: Content-determination and Law-ascertainment Distinguished’ in A Bianchi, D Peat and M Windsor (eds), Interpretation in International Law (Oxford University Press, 2015) 111.

International Law Commission, Report of the International Law Commission on the Work of Its Fifty-Third Session, UN GAOR, 56th sess, Supp No 10, UN Doc A/56/10 (2001) (Draft Articles on Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts, with commentaries)

International Law Commission, ‘Fragmentation of International Law: Difficulties Arising from the Diversification and Expansion of International Law: Report of the Study Group of the International Law Commission finalized by Martti Koskenniemi’, UN Doc. No. A/CN.4/L.682.

Ulf Linderfalk, ‘What is So Special About Jus Cogens? – On the Difference Between the Ordinary and the Peremptory International Law’ (2012) 14(1) International Community Law Review 3.

Ulf Linderfalk, ‘Navigating the Legal Landscape between the General and the Specific: General Concepts as Tools of Legal Reasoning’ (2017) 19(3) International Community Law Review 302.

Vaughan Lowe, ‘Overlapping Jurisdictions in International Tribunals’ (1999) 20 Australian Yearbook of International Law 191.

Jed Odermatt,  ‘A Farewell to Fragmentation: Reassertion and Convergence in International Law’ (2016) 14(3) International Journal of Constitutional Law 776.

Prosper Weil, ‘Towards Relative Normativity in International Law’ (1983) 77 American Journal of International Law 413.

Karin Oellers-Frahms, Multiplication of International Courts and Tribunals and Conflicting Jurisdiction – Problems and Possible Solutions’ (2001) 5(1) Max Planck Yearbook of United Nations Law 57.

Lassa Oppenheim, International Law: a Treatise, ed Hersch Lauterpacht (Longmans, 7th ed, 1952).

Nicholas Papaspyrou, Constitutional Argument and Institutional Structure in the United States (Bloomsbury, 2018).

Alain Pellet, ‘Decisions of the ICJ as Sources of International Law’ (2018) 2 Gaetano Morelli Lecture Series 7.

Alain Pellet, ‘Should We (Still) Worry about Fragmentation’ in Andreas Follesdal and Geir Ulfstein (eds), The Judicialization of International Law: A Mixed Blessing? (Oxford University Press, European Society of International Law, 2018) ch 11.

Alain Pellet, ‘Article 38’ in A Zimmermann et al (eds), The International Court of Justice – A Commentary (Oxford University Press, 2012).

Anne Peters, ‘The Refinement of International Law: From Fragmentation to Regime Interaction and Politicization’ (2017) 15(3) Global Constitutionalism 671.

Mario Prost, ‘Sources and the Hierarchy of International Law: Source Preferences and Scales of Value’ in Samantha Besson and Jean D’Aspremont (eds), Oxford Handbook on the Sources of International Law (Oxford University Press, 2017) 640.

Frederick Maree Van Asbeck, ‘International Law and International Institutions’ (1956) 8 The Ecumenical Review 444.

Frederick Maree Van Asbeck, International Society in Search of a Transnational Legal Order: Selected Writings and Bibliography, eds HF van Panhuys and M van Leeuwen Boomkamp (A W Sijthoff-Leyden, 1976).

Jonte Van Essen, ‘De Facto Regimes in International Law’ (2012) 28(74) Merkourios: Utrecht Journal of International and European Law 31.

Jochen Von Bernstoff,and Philipp Dann (eds), The Battle for International Law: South-North Perspectives on the Decolonization Era (Oxford University Press, 2019).

Michael Wood, ‘First Report on Formation and Evidence of Customary International Law’, UN Doc. A/CN.4/663 (May 17, 2013).

Yuanyi Zhu, ‘Suzerainty, Semi-Sovereignty, and International Legal Hierarchies on China’s Borderlands’ (2020) 10(2) Asian Journal of International Law 293.

[A] Public International Law - History/Theory 

Natasha Wheatley, The Life and Death of States: Central Europe and the Transformation of Sovereignty (Princeton University Press, 2023). 

S Jayakumar, Public International Law Cases from Malaysia and Singapore (Singapore University Press, 1974).

Anna Saunders, ‘Constitution-Making as a Technique of International Law: Reconsidering the Post-War Inheritance’ (2023) 117(2) American Journal of International Law 251.

Bojan Bugarič, ‘The False Promise of Constitutionalism’ (2023) 117 AJIL Unbound 263;.

Gráinne de Búrca, ‘Introduction to the Symposium on Anna Saunders, “Constitution-Making as a Technique of International Law: Reconsidering the Post-War Inheritance”’ (2023) 117 AJIL Unbound 236.

Aliki Semertzi, The thesis of indeterminacy of international law (PhD Thesis, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva, 2022). 

Lisa Vanhala, 'Environmental Legal Mobilization' (2022) 18 Annual Review of Law and Social Science 101 <https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/pdf/10.1146/annurev-lawsocsci-050520-104423>.

[A] Public International Law - Acquisitive Prescription - Maritime Spaces 

Lowell Bautista, 'The Legal Status of the Philippine Territorial Waters Claim in International Law' Philippines Yearbook of International Law <https://law.upd.edu.ph/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/The-Legal-Status-of-the-Philippine-Territorial-Waters.pdf>.

Moritaka Hayashi, 'International Legal Regime regarding Islands and Rocks' (Webpage, The SPF Review of Island Studies, 2021) <https://www.spf.org/islandstudies/research/a00025.html>.

Zuxing Zhang, 'A Deconstruction of the Notion of Acquisitive Prescription and Its Implications for the Diaoyu Islands Dispute' (2012) 2(2) Asian Journal of International Law 323. 

Lea Brilmayer and Natalie Klein, 'Land and Sea: Two Sovereignty Regimes In Search of a Common Denominator' (2001) 33 NYU Journal of International Law and Politics 703 <https://openyls.law.yale.edu/bitstream/handle/20.500.13051/1848/Land_and_Sea_Two_Sovereignty_Regimes_In_Search_of_a_Common_Denominator.pdf?sequence=2>.

Randall Lesaffer, 'Argument from Roman Law in Current International Law: Occupation and Acquisitive Prescription' (2005) 16(1) European Journal of International Law 25.

[Q] Jessup Moot 

Bench Memorandum: 2024 Memorials and National Rounds Edition, 8 February 2024: <https://www.ilsa.org/Jessup/Jessup2024/2024%20Bench%20Memorandum%20version%202.0.pdf>, archived at <https://perma.cc/8QCE-XLF5>. 

Guide for Judging Memorials <https://www.ilsa.org/Jessup/Jessup2025/2025%20Memorial%20Judging%20Guide.pdf>, archived at <https://perma.cc/5DRE-6FXY>.   

'55 Things You Should Know About the Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition' (Chinese Initiative on International Criminal Justice) <https://ciicj.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/55-things-you-should-know-about-the-philip-c-jessup-international-law-moot-court-competition.pdf>. 

Books 

Bin Cheng, General Principles of Law as Applied by International Courts and Tribunals (Cambridge University Press, 1987).

Lassa Oppenheim, International Law: a Treatise, ed Hersch Lauterpacht (Longmans, 7th ed, 1952).

James Crawford, Creation of States in International Law (Oxford University Press, 1979).

Lawrence B. Evans, Leading Cases in International Law (Chicago, 1922)

International Committee of the Red Cross, Commentary on the First Geneva Convention: Convention (I) for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in Armed Forces in the Field (2016)

International Institute of Humanitarian Law, San Remo Manual Relating to Non-International Armed Conflict (2006)

Hersch Lauterpacht, Function of Law in the International Community (Oxford University Press, 1933). — Vols 1-3

Lord McNair, Law of Treaties (OUP, 1938).

Lord McNair, Law of Treaties (OUP, 1961).

DP O’Connell, The Law of State Succession (CUP, 1956).

DP O'Connell, State Succession in Municipal Law and International Law (CUP, 1967).

M Shaw, International Law (CUP, 2017)

James Crawford, Brownlie’s Principles of Public International Law (Oxford University Press, 2012).

Ingo Venzke, How Interpretation Makes International Law (Oxford University Press, 2012).

Philip C Jessup, Transnational Law (Yale University Press, 1956).

Seyed Ali Sadat-Akhavi, Methods of Resolving Conflicts between Treaties (Nijhoff Brill, 2003).

Michael Wood, ‘First Report on Formation and Evidence of Customary International Law’, UN Doc. A/CN.4/663 (May 17, 2013).

A Vamvoukos, Termination of Treaties in International Law (OUP, 1985).

JB Moore, Digest of International Law (1906) Vols I to VIII-- this is the bible for pre-WW2 customary international law

O Udokang, Succession of New States to International Treaties (Oceania, 1972).

E d Vattel, The Law of Nations or the Principles of Natural Law (1758).

Shabtai Rosenne, The Law and Practice of the International Court 1920-2005 (Brill, 2006) -- this is like the 'red book' for ICJ procedure.

C D Gray, International Law and the Use of Force (OUP, 2018).

JL Brierly, The Law of Nations (Clarendon Press, 1949).

W Schabas, The International Criminal Court: A Commentary on the Rome Statute (OUP, 2016).

E Denza, Diplomatic Law: Commentary on the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations (OUP, 2016).

John Westlake,  International Law (University Press, 1904) -- see also, later editions.

© Jing Zhi Wong, 2023-2025