Participants in the International Legal System : Multiple Perspectives on Non-State Actors in International Law

The book features contributions by renowned scholars each of whom looks at a region, theory or tradition of international law, and considers how that approach to international law has determined the understanding of the role and status of non-State actors within that particular school of thought. The book takes a critical approach as it seeks to gauge the extent to which each conception and understanding of international law is instrumental to that perception of non-State actors. In undertaking this study the book necessarily assess the current position of the State in the international legal order and examine the contemporary changes that have affected the State itself.

The international legal system has weathered sweeping changes over the last decade as new participants have emerged. International law-making and law-enforcement processes have become increasingly multi-layered with unprecedented numbers of non-State actors, including individuals, insurgents, multinational corporations and even terrorist groups, being involved. This growth in the importance of non-State actors at the law-making and law-enforcement levels has generated a lot of new scholarly studies on the topic. However, while it remains uncontested that non-State actors are now　playing an important role on the international plane, albeit in very different ways, international legal scholarship has remained riddled by controversy regarding the status of these new actors in international law.

This collection features contributions by renowned scholars, each of whom focuses on a particular　theory or tradition of international law, a region, an institutional regime or a particular subject-matter, and considers how that perspective impacts on our understanding of the role and status of non-State actors. The book takes a critical approach as it seeks to gauge the extent to which each conception and understanding of international law is instrumental in the perception of non-State actors. In doing so the volume provides a wide panorama of all the contemporary legal issues arising in connection with the growing role of non-state actors in international-law making and international law-enforcement processes.