Public international law is a worldwide legal system which regulates the conduct of states (countries) and other actors, both in their international relations and within states’ territories. It governs many areas, such as sovereignty over territory; rights and responsibilities at sea; environmental protection; human rights and the suppression of international crimes; trade and investment; the use of military force; responsibility for breaches of the law; and the settlement of disputes. This chapter introduces the main features of public international law, including its history, sources and purposes. It outlines what the law regulates, who has rights and bears obligations under it, and how it is implemented and enforced. The chapter then considers jurisprudential debates about the nature of public international law as ‘law’ and the reasons for compliance with it, and concludes with discussion of some key critical theories.

The theoretical framework of collective equality changes how tensions between power-sharing arrangements and human rights are viewed: Instead of a dilemma of peace versus justice, it is framed as between two conceptions of justice as we evaluate power-sharing and other collective measures as a way for promoting justice (in addition to peace). This chapter brings the collective equality framework into the legal debate and explores its key implications for human rights law. It also offers an alternative way to mitigate the tensions between existing international law (International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, Article 1) and contemporary peacemaking practice, which is more apt to the contemporary task of international law: regulating disputes and conflicting demands made by ethno-national groups. This proposed framework aims to contribute to an already happening shift, from a state-centered interpretation of the right to self-determination to a more nuanced and substantive understanding of that right as an international legal right of peoples to secure their freedom and equality.

This chapter substantiates the argument that promoting collective equality as a core rationale of peacemaking is not only utopian, but a realistic goal that corresponds with reducing the likelihood of violent conflict and increasing the potential for durable peace. In the first part of the chapter, the argument that collective equality posits a realistic goal for peacemaking is presented. In the second part, the claim that promoting collective equality should be regarded as an effective peacebuilding strategy is promoted. I base this claim on empirical findings found in the literature, mainly writings on ethnic conflicts, nation-building, and peace. Lastly, the chapter engages with three possible objections related to the relationship between collective equality and power politics.

The concepts of sovereignty and nonintervention stand at the heart of the election interference discourse, but they are also a substantial shortcoming of that discourse. The scholarly literature needs to think more creatively about legal doctrines that can analyze election interference in an intuitive and compelling way. The present chapter argues that the answer lies in the long-ignored right of self-determination. Section 1 explains the right of self-determination and its undeniable status as a binding right under international law. Section 2 explains why election interference violates self-determination. Section 3 answers an obvious question: If self-determination is the key to understanding election interference, why have international lawyers so assiduously avoided this powerful legal category? Finally, Section 4 considers several objections to the self-determination framework, namely that: (i) self-determination applies before the creation of statehood but not after; (ii) there is insufficient state practice or opinio juris of states objecting to election interference on grounds of self-determination; (iii) election interference cannot be illegal under international law because so many states have engaged in it; and (iv) the right of self-determination might not apply when a state acts extraterritorially, as Russia did when it intervened in U.S. elections.