This event is a work-in-progress workshop involving a number of contributors to Stephen Allen, Daniel Costelloe, Malgosia Fitzmaurice, Paul Gragl and Edward Guntrip (eds.) Oxford Handbook of Jurisdiction in International Law (Oxford University Press, forthcoming).
The Handbook is intended as an authoritative guide to the rapidly evolving field of jurisdiction in international law. The principal aim of the book is to interrogate this intricate, but under-analysed, area of law. Responses to global phenomena indicate that established conceptions of jurisdiction are being supplanted by extra-territorial interpretations of authority. This shift has major ramifications for the international legal rules concerning jurisdiction, which have largely functioned on the assumption that States possess exclusive authority within certain areas and that international law merely performs the task of resolving co-ordination problems, when they arise. However, it is becoming apparent that orthodox approaches to State jurisdiction are unable to cope with contemporary conditions and new phenomena are defying categorisation by reference to the traditional doctrine of international law.
Against this background, the Handbook focuses on the ways in which international law responds to the jurisdictional challenges that it currently confronts. It endeavours to do this by examining the topic of jurisdiction in a holistic manner and by examining the cross-over points and interactions between a variety of distinct components which have developed in the jurisprudence (e.g. public international law/private international law, general/special regimes, theory/practice). Accordingly, the Handbook seeks to offer fresh insights into the practical and theoretical function of jurisdiction in modern international law.
