When International Law Works Realistic Idealism After 9/11 and the Global Recession

by Cheng, Tai-Heng

• ISBN13: 9780195370171
• ISBN10: 0195370171
• eBook ISBN(s): 9780199708383
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2012-01-02
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

When International Law Worksstands to change the way states and scholars look at this contentious topic. In this seminal work, Professor Tai-Heng Cheng addresses the current international law debates and transcends them. Working from influential statements on international law by such scholars as Goldsmith, Posner, O'Connell, and Guzman, Cheng presents a new framework that states should consider when they confront an international problem that implicates the often competing interests of both their own communities and the global legal order. Instead of advocating for or against international law as legitimate or binding, as many commentators do, Cheng acknowledges both its shortcomings and benefits while presenting a practical means of deciding whether compliance in a given circumstance is beneficial, moral, or necessary. To demonstrate how his new proposal for approaching international law would work in a real crisis, Cheng provides numerous case studies from contemporary history that test his theory. Ranging topically from the current global economic crisis to the West's war on jihadist terrorism, these detailed and demonstrative case studies set this book apart from similar works of international legal scholarship. By combining theory with practice,When International Law Worksgives policymakers, academics, and students 'real world' guidance on how to face new global problems. In doing so, this new book challenges readers to rethink the role of law in an increasingly crisis-driven world.

Author Biography

Tai-Heng Cheng is Professor of Law and Co-Director of the Institute for Global Law, Justice, & Policy at
New York Law School, and has been a visiting professor at Vanderbilt Law School.

An author of over forty books, articles and essays, Professor Cheng's research has been published in the University of Illinois Law Review, Temple Law Review, and the Michigan Journal of International Law. His scholarship has been cited and relied on as authoritative by U.S. federal circuit and district courts.

Professor Cheng is a member of the Executive Council of American Society of International Law, chairs its Awards Committee, and was co-chair of its 2011 Annual Meeting. He is also a member of the Executive Committee and Academic Council of the Institute for Transnational Arbitration, and a member of the American Law Institute.

Professor Cheng has served as tribunal chair, arbitrator, lead counsel and expert in ICSCID, UNCITRAL, ICDR, ICC, SCC, and JAMS arbitrations, and in U.S. and Canada court proceedings. He is a member of the panels of neutrals of the ICDR, CPR, and HKIAC. He has also advised the U.N. Transitional Administration in East Timor and the Republic of Kosovo on international and comparative law.

Professor Cheng holds Doctor of the Science of Law and Master of Laws degrees from Yale Law School, where he was Howard M. Holtzmann Fellow for International Law. He also holds a law degree with First Class Honors from Oxford University.