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This updated and revised second edition of Advanced Introduction to International Conflict and Security Law provides a concise and insightful guide to the key principles of international law governing peacetime security, arms control, the use of force, armed conflict and post-conflict situations. Nigel D. White explores the complex legal regimes that have been created to control levels of armaments, to limit the occasions when governments can use military force, to mitigate the conduct of warfare and to build peace.

1. Introduction -- 2. Cuba's struggle for independence -- 3. Colonialism, imperialism and pariah states -- 4. Exporting revolution, importing communism -- 5. Self-help and international law -- 6. The Cuban embargo -- 7. Violations, responsibility and remedies -- 8. Legal framework for peaceful settlement -- 9. Concluding remarks on the relevance of international law.

It is argued in this article that due diligence, grounded on positive duties under international human rights law, is a standard against which to measure the performance of UN peacekeeping forces. Its adoption by the UN will improve accountability, but in a controlled and principled way. A requirement that the UN act diligently to prevent human rights violations would not impose over-onerous obligations. For responsibility to be incurred an organisation must have clearly failed to take measures that were within its power to take. It is argued that the UN not only should be bound by norms of due diligence but is in fact bound by positive obligations derived from customary international human rights law. The development of some due diligence-type measures by the UN to prevent sexual abuse by peacekeepers and to protect civilians within areas of peacekeeper deployment, and the adoption of an explicit due diligence policy to delineate its relationship with non-UN security actors, are positive signs. However, the article demonstrates that the UN needs to further internalise and develop its due diligence obligations if it is to limit human rights violations committed under its watch. Furthermore, it needs to create accountability mechanisms to ensure that it develops the rather limited measures taken thus far, including provision for victims to be able to hold the organisation to account for failure to protect them from human rights violations. Only by accepting its responsibility and liability to such victims will be the UN be driven to improve its due diligence when mandating, preparing, training, deploying and directing peacekeeping operations.

This article explores the legal bases of autonomy in peacekeeping and whether it has developed to such an extent that there are signs of a self-referential legal order governing peacekeeping, separate from other legal orders. Given that it will be shown that the principles governing peacekeeping are derived from general international law, there must be a presumption against there being a self-referential legal order, but the possibility that there has been a significant development of specific principles and rules will be explored. Moreover, this development may have occurred to such an extent that although the original source may remain in international law, a separate legal order has emerged. If the norms of that legal order no longer reflect the wider principles of international law then concerns revolve not only around fragmentation of international law but also around the continuing compatibility of peacekeeping with international law.

This article explores the legal bases of autonomy in peacekeeping and whether it has developed to such an extent that there are signs of a self-referential legal order governing peacekeeping, separate from other legal orders. Given that it will be shown that the principles governing peacekeeping are derived from general international law, there must be a presumption against there being a self-referential legal order, but the possibility that there has been a significant development of specific principles and rules will be explored. Moreover, this development may have occurred to such an extent that although the original source may remain in international law, a separate legal order has emerged. If the norms of that legal order no longer reflect the wider principles of international law then concerns revolve not only around fragmentation of international law, but also around the continuing compatibility of peacekeeping with international law.

The UK government is currently proposing the enactment of a "Sanctions Act" upon the UK's withdrawal from the EU in 2019, embodying a right to impose "autonomous sanctions" against other states and non-state actors, on the basis that the UK will no longer be able to benefit from the EU's collective sanctioning competence. The spotlight is again on the nature and purposes of sanctions in international law. The article addresses the legal framework applicable to sanctions by, first of all, showing that the nature of sanctions is different in the international legal order to how it is conceived in domestic legal orders in that sanctions are primarily imposed in response to threats to or breaches of the peace and, in so doing, the analysis will distinguish sanctions from countermeasures and other non-forcible measures. It then proceeds to demonstrate that the values of peace and security that underpin sanctions are essentially normative and should be seen as part of the international legal order and enforceable through sanctions alongside other fundamental norms of international law. Whether viewed as responses to breaches of international law or not, the analysis shows that sanctions are collective measures exclusively within the competence of international organizations. Having established the conceptual and legal frameworks for understanding sanctions, the article considers sanctions imposed against states and non-state actors, and explores whether the move towards targeted sanctions is a form of collective response to violations of international law. The article finishes by considering that, in contrast to countermeasures and other measures of self-help, collective sanctions are inherently lawful, but can only be legally justified as measures adopted out of a necessity to prevent major ruptures to peace and international law.

AbstractThe announcement by Presidents Obama and Castro in December 2014 of a major step towards normalisation of inter-state relations was part of what is primarily a political process, but normalisation implies a return to peaceful inter-state relations based on respect for fundamental principles of international law. This commentary explores the role that those principles have played in helping shape the confrontation between the United States and Cuba since the revolution of 1959, which has been underpinned by an economic, commercial and financial embargo of Cuba by the United States. This commentary argues that, from being an integral part of the bilateral dispute, international law can, at key moments, shift to form part of a solution. The changing political landscape raises the prospects of the parties turning to international law as a means of restoring normal relations between them resulting in, amongst other changes, the demise of the embargo.