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"This volume explores law-making in international affairs. It has been compiled to celebrate the occasion of the 50th birthday of Professor Jan Klabbers, a leading international law and international relations scholar, who has made a significant contribution to the understanding of the sources of international obligations and the idea of constitutionalism in international law. Inspired by Professor Klabbers wide-ranging interests in international law, his determined disregard for disciplinary boundaries and his often provocative views, the book looks at law-making in a colourful variety of different ways and occasionally seeks to push the envelope in terms of what it means to think and write about law and its making. The book includes contributions from respected legal scholars including Eyal Benevisiti, James Crawford, Malgozia Fitzmaurice, Martti Koskenniemi, Bruno Simma and Geir Ulfstein.The first part of the book attempts to situate, on the most abstract and theoretical level, the notion of law-making into a philosophical, historical, social, linguistic and literary context. The second section looks at some of the processes of law-making, the institutions involved and the sometimes unclear divide between law and non-law. Topics covered include: global administrative law; law-making in the EU; regionalism and international law, domestic legal systems and international law; and informal law-making and the changing nature of law in global governance. The third and final part of the book the problems of law-making in particular areas, such as human rights, the law of the sea, environmental law, the law of state responsibility, international humanitarian law, and international criminal law. But while these contributions do look at the 'substance', as it were, of international law, they raise more general concerns, such as the relationship between law-making and the application of law, the role of various institutions and the potential for conflict between them and the characteristics of the formal sources of international law. "--

Alexandre Sidorenko – Senior Advisor, European Centre for Social Welfare Policy and Research, Vienna, Austria. Email: sidorenko.alexandre@gmail.com
Asghar Zaidi – Professor in International Social Policy, University of Southampton, UK. Email: Asghar.Zaidi@soton.ac.uk
The central goal of this article is to review progress made in implementing the international policy frameworks on ageing, focusing on the Vienna International Plan of Action on Ageing (VIPAA) and in more detail on the Madrid International Plan of Action on Ageing (MIPAA). The article offers a critical examination of the current approaches to monitoring and assessing the implementation process, outlining promising avenues for the future. In this way, the limitations of the current procedures for following the policy priorities of the MIPAA can be highlighted. What is found is that progress in many countries is hampered by inherent subjectivity in assessing and reporting advancement, lack of continuity and consistency, and difficulties in comparing the national level progress with international development in the same areas. The current year, 2017 / 2018, is momentous as we reach the end of the third five-year implementation cycle of the MIPAA. Introspection now should not merely focus on assessing the progress made but also on how the implementation of the MIPAA could be strengthened. In the same spirit, the 2030 Agenda of Sustainable Development Goals presents new opportunities; especially its pledges 'Leave no one behind' and 'Reach the furthest behind first', which imply that the older population can serve as agents of development. In moving forward, an essential requirement will have to be the establishment of an internationally acceptable set of indicators, which can be employed for assessing national progress in addressing the challenges and opportunities of ageing and monitoring the international efforts to implement international policy frameworks like the MIPAA. Along the lines of the dashboard of indicators used in the Active Ageing Index 'AAI', there should be a MIPAA monitoring toolkit with different layers of indicators, which are aligned with the three priority directions of the MIPAA.

This open access handbook is distinguished by its emphasis on international energy, rather than domestic energy policies or international geopolitic aspects. Addressing key topics such as energy production and distribution, renewables and corporate energy structures, alongside global energy trends, regional case studies and emerging areas such as the digitalization of energy and energy transition, this handbook provides a major new contribution to the field of international energy economics. Written by academics, practitioners and policy-makers, this handbook is a valuable and timely addition to the literature on international energy economics. This book was published open access with the support of Eni.

In a recent issue of the Journal, one finds a largely theoretical discussion of a question that potentially implicates quite serious legal policies and consequences: "May the President violate customary international law?" Despite professorial conjecture, the answer to such a question, which can be documented in actual trends in legal decision, emphatically has been no (i.e., the President is bound by and may not lawfully violate international law).

[In 1999, the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee invited a number of international lawyers to submit papers on the legal aspects of the Kosovo crisis. Papers were submitted by Professor Ian Brownlie QC, Professor Christine Chinkin, Professor Christopher Greenwood QC, Professor Vaughan Lowe, and Mark Littman QC. The three last-named answered questions on the issue at a session of the Committee held in February 2000.

Biomasse spielt eine Schlüsselrolle bei der Erfüllung der EU 20-20-20 Energieziele. Aufgrund des steigenden Bedarfs bei gleichzeitig limitierten einheimischen Ressourcen ist die EU auf weltweite Biomasseimporte angewiesen. In diesem Rahmen untersucht die vorliegende Arbeit die Einflussnahme unterschiedlicher Förderungen, Preisrisiken und die thermische Vorbehandlung durch Torrefizierung auf Pelletsversorgungsketten. Die Analysen basieren auf drei realen Fallstudien für Pelletshandel von Australien, Kanada und Russland nach Europa. In der ersten Untersuchung wird die Kofeuerung importierter Pellets auf ihre Effizienz hinsichtlich CO2 Einsparungen und verbundener Förderungen evaluiert. Szenarien zeigen, dass Biomasse- Kofeuerung einen effizienten Beitrag zur Erfüllung der EU Energieziele leisten kann. Dennoch könnten die Fördersysteme noch wirksamer auf die Versorgungsoptionen mit geringstem Umwelteffekt abzielen. Die zweite Analyse untersucht den Einfluss von Preisrisiken auf die Wirtschaftlichkeit der Versorgungsketten. Es wird gezeigt, dass Preisrisiken extrem starke wirtschaftliche Schwankungen über einen kurzen Zeitraum verursachen können. Die Absicherung der Versorgungskette geschieht oft über bilaterale Verträge, persönliche Erfahrungen und schnelle Anpassungen an das Fördersystem. Dabei könnte ein systematisches Monitoring dazu beitragen, den Markt verlässlicher zu gestalten und Investitionsentscheidungen zu erleichtern. In der letzten Untersuchung werden die Vorteile von Versorgungsketten auf Basis torrefizierter Pellets bewertet. Im Ergebnis zeigt sich, dass torrefizierte Pellets einen gewissen wirtschaftlichen und ökologischen Vorteil ermöglichen können, es aber noch Forschungsbedarf hinsichtlich der Technologieumsetzung und Marktimplementierung gibt. ; Biomass plays a key role to achieve the EU's 20-20-20 energy and climate targets. Because of rising European demand and limited domestic resources, the EU relies on worldwide imports. Given this framework, the present thesis explores the influences on wood pellet supply chains considering different environmental policies, price risks and the effect of torrefaction pretreatment. The examinations refer to three real case studies for pellet trade from Australia, Canada, and Russia to Europe. In the first investigation, the efficiency of co-firing imported wood pellets in terms of CO2 savings and related subsidy schemes is analysed. Scenarios show that co-firing biomass is efficient to contribute to the EU energy targets. Though, policy makers could use these instruments more effective when directing sourcing decision towards options with even less environmental impacts. The second analysis explores the influence of statistically derived price risks on total supply chain economics. It is shown that price risks can effect strong fluctuations in the short term, which seriously affect the profitability of individual trade routes. Securing the supply chain is mainly based on individual producer-buyer agreements, personal branch experiences and fast reactions on the subsidy system. Systematic evaluation of supply chains could contribute to a more reliable market and thus foster investment decisions. In the last investigation, the economic and environmental performance of potential torrefaction-based supply chains is assessed. As a result, torrefaction-based supply chains turn out to be a certain alternative to conventional ones. Though, still huge research efforts and industrial demonstration are required to make torrefied biomass a real alternative on the market.