This chapter will first discuss the main subjects of international law and explain their principal features. Second, this chapter will zoom in on states, the traditional and principal actors in the international legal system. It will discuss the criteria for statehood under international law, the role that recognition plays in this respect, and explain how new states emerge. Finally, this chapter will turn to an analysis of the right to self-determination, a notion that plays an important role in the creation of states and is considered to be the most prominent right of one of the subjects of international law: peoples.

This chapter introduces the jus ad bellum: the rules of law determining when states may resort to war or, more broadly, the use of armed force. These rules must be distinguished from the jus in bello: these are the rules of law that apply in armed conflict (known as international humanitarian law). In order to put the current jus ad bellum rules into perspective, the chapter begins by introducing the concept of collective security and demonstrating how this was applied during the League of Nations era. The following sections set out the relevant rules of the UN Charter on the prevention and regulation of recourse to the use of force, with a particular focus on the prohibition on the threat or use of force. The chapter also discusses the collective use of force, meaning the use of force authorized by the Security Council, and the unilateral use of force in self-defense. Finally, the chapter examines whether new exceptions to the prohibition of the use of force are emerging -- in particular, humanitarian intervention and the responsibility to protect.

This chapter will first discuss the main subjects of international law and explain their principal features. Second, this chapter will zoom in on states, the traditional and principal actors in the international legal system. It will discuss the criteria for statehood under international law, the role that recognition plays in this respect, and explain how new states emerge. Finally, this chapter will turn to an analysis of the right to self-determination, a notion that plays an important role in the creation of states and is considered to be the most prominent right of one of the subjects of international law: peoples.

This chapter introduces the jus ad bellum: the rules of law determining when states may resort to war or, more broadly, the use of armed force. These rules must be distinguished from the jus in bello: these are the rules of law that apply in armed conflict (known as international humanitarian law). In order to put the current jus ad bellum rules into perspective, the chapter begins by introducing the concept of collective security and demonstrating how this was applied during the League of Nations era. The following sections set out the relevant rules of the UN Charter on the prevention and regulation of recourse to the use of force, with a particular focus on the prohibition on the threat or use of force. The chapter also discusses the collective use of force, meaning the use of force authorized by the Security Council, and the unilateral use of force in self-defense. Finally, the chapter examines whether new exceptions to the prohibition of the use of force are emerging -- in particular, humanitarian intervention and the responsibility to protect.

Chapter 7 looks into the interstices of the contemporary sovereign states system. One of the key practical effects of the normative tensions between the different understandings of property informing the practice of the sovereignty cartel is a governance gap between autonomy and multilateralism into which a variety of illicit activities falls. The chapter argues that the tensions not only create spaces in the system in which illicit activity can find a home but actually force some activity there by definition. This often involves non-sovereign actors engaged in economic pursuits, either finding the interstices of sovereignty to arbitrage regulatory gaps or forced into the interstices by those gaps. It also often involves sovereign actors taking advantage of the market value of their sovereign property rights to enrich either their states or themselves. These gaps in governance in the sovereign states system introduce places where sovereign right can be challenged. This is why a sovereignty cartel is necessary to maintain these rights. The cartel is the mechanism by which the sovereign states system polices its interstices and keeps them from undermining the prerogatives of its members.

Nothing about developing and implementing a treaty on the prohibition of nuclear weapons is easy. While supporters of the TPNW undoubtedly claim a victory in its coming into being, its opponents note its shortcomings warning of the adverse and dire consequences. The degree to which such concerns will materialize remains to be seen. What is certain, however, is that the adoption of the TPNW has marked the beginning of a new schism in the international community. The word schism is appropriate in this context, loosely defined as “a split or division between strongly opposed sections or parties, caused by differences in opinion or belief.”