Oppenheim's International Law, Volume I: Peace (Ninth Edition) Sir Robert Jennings and Sir Arthur Watts (eds.)

• Author: P.K. Menon
• Position: Professor of Law, University of the West Indies
• Pages: 142-143

Oppenheim's International

Law,

Volume

I:

Peace

(Ninth

Edition)

Sir

Robert Jennings

and Sir

Arthur Watts

(eds.)

[Longman Higher Education, Longman

Group U.K. Ltd., 1992, 1575 pp.]

Eighty-eight years ago, in 1905, L.F.L. Oppenheim published in two

volumes International Law: A Treatise, "intended to present international

law as it is, not as it ought to be." The book was at once accepted as the

clearest, most cogent and accurate statement of the subject at the time. It is

widely known as Oppenheim's International Law and it has established itself

amongst both academics and practitioners as a classic of its kind.

Since its first publication in 1905, seven editions of its two constituent

volumes have been published. In 1955, an eighth edition of the first volume

[Peace] was edited by Hersch Lauterpacht, then Whewell Professor of

International Law at Cambridge University (later to become a judge of the

International Court of Justice) and published. That edition is now out of

print and the contents are mostly out of date. Nevertheless it is still

regarded as a comprehensive compilation of principles, accurately enough

stated for citation in municipal and international courts as well as in arbitral

tribunals. It is surfeit with source materials and bibliographic references

which provide an adequate data-bank to enquiring research scholars,

practitioners and government legal advisers all over the world.

The present edition is comprehensively revised and updated by the

editors, two leading authorities in the subject. Sir Robert Jennings, Q.C. is

President of the International Court of Justice and is a former President of

the Institut de Droit International and Emeritus Whewell Professor of

International Law at the University of Cambridge. Sir Arthur Watts,

K.C.M.G., Q.C., was the legal adviser to the Foreign and Commonwealth

Office [U.K.] from 1987 to 1991.

Book one of the Volume is divided into four chapters. Chapter 1 attempts

to examine the foundations of international law in a traditional way, and the

topics discussed are the nature and sources, relationship between

international law and municipal law, universality and codification of

international law. Chapter 2 deals with the subjects of international law with

reference to international personality of States. Different categories of

States, such as sovereign States, composite States, the Commonwealth,

States under protection, dependent territories, mandated and trusteeship

territories, neutralized States, and the Holy See are described. The problems

of recognition of States and governments and the succession of States have

also been discussed. Chapters 3 and 4 review the position of States and the

responsibility of States respectively.