Realizing Utopia The Future of International Law

Realizing Utopia is a collection of essays by a group of innovative international jurists. Its contributors reflect on some of the major legal problems facing the international community and analyse the inconsistencies or inadequacies of current law. They highlight the elements - even if minor, hidden, or emerging - that are likely to lead to future changes or improvements. Finally, they suggest how these elements can be developed, enhanced, and brought to fruition in the next two or three decades, with a view to achieving an improved architecture of world society or, at a minimum, to reshaping some major aspects of international dealings. Contributions to the book thus try to discern the potential, in the present legal construct of world society, that might one day be brought to light in a better world. As the impact of international law on national legal orders continues to increase, this volume takes stock of how far international law has come and how it should continue to develop. The work features an impressive list of contributors, including many of the leading authorities on international law and several judges of the International Court of Justice.

1 - Introduction
2 - The project of a world community
3 - Is the Leviathan still holding sway over the international society?
4 - State Sovereignty
5 - The United Nations
6 - The Security Council
7 - International actors other that States
8 - International civil society
9 - Universal values v. bilateralism and reciprocity
10 - Effectiveness v. universal values
11 - Towards constitutionalising the world community?
12 - Towards a global community of human rights?
13 - Customary law
14 - Jus cogens
15 - New modalities of law-making
16 - Bolstering the implementation of international rules in domestic systems
17 - Towards a "moderate monism ": could international rules eventually acquire the force to invalidate inconsistent national laws?
18 - Making state responsibility work
19 - Immunity of states and state officials: a major stumbling-block to judicial scrutiny?
20 - The International Court of Justice: it is high time to restyle the respected old lady
21 - The International Criminal Court at a crossroads
22 - The regional courts on human rights
23 - The judicial protection of foreign investment
24 - The proliferation on international courts and their coordination
25 - The role of state courts
26 - How to ensure increased compliance with international standards: monitoring and institutional fact-finding
27 - Inspection of nuclear facilities
28 - Overseeing compliance with human rights
29 - Monitoring compliance with standards for the protection of the environment
30 - Self-defence
31 - Humanitarian use of force
32 - Self-determination of peoples: is it still alive
33 - The question of development
34 - WTO and world trade
35 - Regulating international financial problems
36 - Environment
37 - Terrorism
38 - Human rights and genetic manipulation
39 - The use of cyberspace
40 - Protection of civilians in armed conflicts
41 - Should rebels be treated as criminals?
42 - Internal armed conflicts
43 - Belligerent occupation
44 - Modern means of warfare
45 - Towards compensation of civilians for gross breaches of international law on methods and means of warfare
46 - International criminal justice
47 - The expansion of national criminal jurisdiction over international crimes
48 - Civil redress for international wrongs
49 - Recapitulation and Conclusion

Antonio Cassese was Professor of International Law at the University of Florence until 2008. He is a member of the Institut de Droit International, and former President of the Council of Europe Committee for the Prevention of Torture. He was the first President of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), serving in this capacity from 1993 to 1997 and then as the presiding judge of trial chambers until 2000. In October 2004, Cassese was appointed by United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan to be the Chairperson of the UN International Commission of Enquiry into Violations of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law in Darfur. In 2006 the United Nations Secretary-General appointed him as an independent expert tasked to review the judicial efficiency of the Special Court of Sierra Leone. In March 2009 Cassese was appointed by United Nations as judge for the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) where he was elected President of the Tribunal.