Self Defense in International Law

2014. ISBN-13: 9781584778554; ISBN-10: 1584778555. Self-Defense and the Right to Go to War Bowett, D.W. Self-Defense in International Law. Originally published: New York: Praeger, [1958]. xv, 294 pp. Reprinted 2009, 2014 by The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd. ISBN-13: 9781584778554; ISBN-10: 1584778555. Hardcover. New. $65. * Bowett observes that the use or threat of force by any state can be a delict, an approved sanction, or a measure taken in self-defense. He examines the evolution of the doctrine in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, with the assumption of the existence of a state's unlimited 'right' to go to war. He then attempts to outline the limited and provisional effects of this right under the U.N. Charter. "Throughout the work there is a refusal to dogmatize or to state in absolute terms any aspect of the 'privilege' of self-defence in its present context. (...) [Bowett] is to be congratulated on producing a timely and scholarly survey of one of the most fundamental, and often abused, sovereign rights known to international law.": K.R. Simmonds, British Year Book of International Law 34 (1958) 432. SIR DEREK WILLIAM BOWETT [1927-2009], an international lawyer, was President of Queens' College, Cambridge, from 1969-1982 and Whewell Professor of International Law, Cambridge, from 1981-1991. He was awarded a CBE in 1983 and a knighthood in 1998. He is the author of The Law of International Institutions (1963), United Nations Forces: A Legal Study (1964), The Law of the Sea (1967), The Search for Peace (1972) and The International Court of Justice (1996).