Feel free to browse, but please note…
Bookshelf
Don’t you just love the smell of new books? I certainly do, so here I’ve provided some recommendations to get your nose stuck into. But first, a disclaimer!
The more tech-savvy amongst you will notice that the links provided below are affiliate links, so let’s set some things straight. Firstly, buying a book through an affiliate link means that this site will receive a small (very small…) percentage of the sale price at no extra cost to you. All proceeds go towards the running of this site, which does not (I repeat: does not) include fancy coffees and/or packets of chocolate Hobnobs. Secondly, I’m not being paid or in any other way bribed by any publisher or author to recommend the books listed below. I genuinely use these books in my every day work and in my teaching, and very often they come highly recommended from others in the academy too.
So, on with the books…
Featured Title
Every now and again, I find a book on international law that I realllllllly like, so this little space is reserved for those gems. Right now, I’m enjoying Thirlway’s book on ‘The Sources of International Law’. When you start learning PIL, you’re told that the PIL sources are listed in Art. 38 of the ICJ Statute, which is certainly true, but there may be more to it. Thirlway does examine these traditional sources, let’s say, but he also encourages readers to challenge the Art. 38 default and look elsewhere for sources of international law. A short book at only 220ish pages, but a great one all the same. Highly recommended.
Textbooks
Your choice of textbook can have a real impact on your success as a PIL student. I’ve had students in the past who started to dislike the subject as they couldn’t quite get on with the textbook they were using, so it really does pay to shop around and see which text looks best for you. Out of those listed below, Crawford’s is the most complex and Dixon’s is the simplest. The rest are largely comparable, I’d say. Dixon’s textbook is great, but on its own it won’t be enough to get you the top grades in PIL. So, if you buy Dixon, make sure you’ve got another one to supplement your reading. What I recommend my students do is read the relevant chapter in Dixon as an introduction, then read the relevant chapter in another textbook to compile notes. This is a great compounding exercise that really helps to drive home the information. If you only want to buy one textbook, I’d recommend going for Shaw. Evans is formatted slightly differently, as it is an edited collection (i.e. it consists of chapters written by different authors), but still very very good.
Cases and Materials
These books will save you a lot of time. PIL requires different types of materials, some of which are easy to find and most of which are a little more difficult. C&M books collect relevant materials together into topics and usually provide commentary to help you understand where each one fits in with the theory that you’ve read in your textbook. The book I’ve recommended below is compiled by Professor David Harris and Professor Sandesh Sivakumaran, two very well-respected international law experts, and I’ve found that their commentary is second to none.
Documents
It’s a good idea to get yourself a copy of a reliable book of international law documents, i.e. the main statutes, conventions, treaties, resolutions etc. Yes, you can find these documents online but when you’re working on something where you’ve got multiple resources to consult or if you need to double check something quickly in class, you can’t go far wrong with a physical book in front of you. More importantly, document books are also much more reliable, as some websites often reproduce key documents on their site, but then don’t update them. Save yourself all that bother by getting hold of a good documents book in the first place. Any of the below will usually suffice for an undergraduate degree. I have both of them, and for every day use I don’t find that there’s an awful lot of difference between the two.
