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Reflecting on the Fourth Restatement of the Foreign Relations Law, these essays provide a comprehensive survey of the most significant issues in contemporary U.S. foreign relations law. They review the context and assumptions on which that work relied, critique its analysis and conclusions, and explore topics left out of the published work that need research and development. Collectively the essays provide an authoritative study of the issues generating controversy today as well as those most likely to emerge in the coming decade. The book is organized in three parts. The first provides a historical context for the law of foreign relations from the beginning of the twentieth century to the present. The second and largest part looks at contested issues in foreign relations law today, from the status of international law as federal domestic law to presidential authority to make, unmake, and apply international agreements; and to the immunity of international organizations and foreign government officials from domestic lawsuits. The last part considers how foreign relations law might develop in the future as well as the difficulties raised by using the Restatement process as a way of contributing to the law's development. These essays for the most part concentrate on U.S. law, but the problems they face are common to all democratic republics that seek to reconcile international relations with the rule of law. ; https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/books/1263/thumbnail.jpg

By definition, international law, once agreed upon and consented to, applies to all parties equally. This book explains that states at times adhere to similar, and at other times, adopt different interpretations of the same international norms and standards. This book achieves three objectives. The first is to show that international law is not a monolith. The second is to map the cross-country similarities and differences in international legal norms in different fields of international law, as well as their application and interpretation with regards to geographic differences. The third is to make a first and preliminary attempt to explain these differences. It is organized into three broad thematic sections, exploring: conceptual matters, domestic institutions and comparative international law, and comparing approaches across issue-areas. The chapters are authored by contributors who include leading international law and comparative law scholars with diverse backgrounds, experience, and perspectives.

At first blush, "comparative international law" might sound like an oxymoron. In principle, international law—at least when it arises from multilateral treaties or general custom—applies equally to all parties or states. As a result, international lawyers often resist emphasizing local, national, or regional approaches due to the field's aspirations to universality and uniformity. Comparativists, meanwhile, frequently overlook the potential to apply comparative law insights to international law on the basis that "rules which are avowedly universal in character do not lend themselves to comparison."