A timely, thought-provoking and innovative reappraisal of the core actors on the international stage: states.

An Australian in England Philippe Sands; James Crawford: the earlier years Ivan Shearer; Part I. Sovereignty: 1. The war against cliché: dispatches from the international legal front Susan Marks and Karen Knop; 2. International law and the responsibility to protect Michael Byers; 3. Human rights beyond borders at the World Court Ralph Wilde; 4. Fragmentation, regime interaction and sovereignty Margaret Young; 5. The legitimacy of investment treaties: between exit, voice and James Crawford's quest for a more democratic international law Lluis Paradell-Trius; 6. Polar territorial and maritime sovereignty in the twenty-first century Don Rothwell; 7. An enquiry into the palimpsestic nature of territorial sovereignty in East Asia - with particular reference to the Senkaku/Diaoyudao question Keun-Gwan Lee; 8. General legal characteristics of states: a view from the past of the Permanent Court of International Justice Ole Spiermann; Part II. Statehood: 9. The Security Council and statehood Christine Chinkin; 10. The dynamics of statehood in the practice of international and English courts Alexander Orakhelashvili; 11. How to recognise a state (and not): some practical considerations Tom Grant; 12. An analysis of the 1969 Act of Free Choice in West Papua Tom Musgrave; 13. Recognition of the State of Palestine: still too much too soon? Yael Ronen; 14. The role of the Uti Possidetis Principle in the Resolution of Maritime Boundary Disputes Suzanne Lalonde; 15. A room for 'state continuity' in international law? A constitutionalist perspective Ineta Ziemele; Part III. State Responsibility: 16. Law-making in complex processes: the World Court and the modern law of state responsibility Christian Tams; 17. Defending individual ships from pirates: questions of state responsibility and immunity Douglas Guilfoyle; 18. Excessive collateral civilian casualties and military necessity: awkward crossroads in international humanitarian law between state responsibility and individual criminal liability Yutaka Arai-Takahashi; 19. Third-party countermeasures: observations on a controversial concept Martin Dawidowicz; 20. The Appellate Body's use of the articles on state responsibility in US - anti-dumping and countervailing duties (China) Isabelle Van Damme; 21. The application of the rules on countermeasures in investment claims: visions and realities of international law as an open system Kate Parlett; 22. The external relations of the European Union and its Member States: lessons from recent developments in the economic sphere Damien Geradin; 23. Invoking, establishing and remedying state responsibility in mixed multi-party disputes: lessons from Eurotunnel Freya Baetens.