The Protection of General Interests in Contemporary International Law: A Theoretical and Empirical Inquiry

Massimo Iovane · Fulvio M. Palombino · Daniele Amoroso · Giovanni Zarra

Aug 2021 · Oxford University Press

About this ebook

This book analyses three key concepts, global public goods, global commons, and fundamental values, as tools geared towards the protection of the general interests of the international community. After providing an overview of these concepts, the book examines how international law has responded to them in a wide range of fields, and investigates how global governance has improved, or worsened, this response. Contributions from a group of experts explore the legal foundations of general interests, and discuss which interests have or have not been deemed to deserve the protection of international law. Other chapters focus on whether, and to what extent, it is appropriate that international law intervenes to regulate such interests, considering the interplay between multiple actors including states, international and regional organisations, and non-state actors. The book explores how states and other actors have used international law to protect general interests, what lessons can be learned from these efforts, and what significant challenges still need to be addressed.

About the author

Massimo Iovane is Professor of International Law at Federico II University of Naples and Visiting Professor at the British Institute of International and Comparative Law. He is also a Visiting Professor at the British Institute of International and Comparative Law and Professeur invité at Paris-I Panthéon-Sorbonne University and at Tel Aviv University. Fulvio M. Palombino is Professor of International Law at the Law Department of the University of Naples Federico II, where he also serves as academic coordinator of the Jean Monnet Summer School on Labour Migration in the European Union, and Adjunct Professor of International Law at the Law Department of Luiss University in Rome. During the biennium 2019-2020 he was Vice-President of the European Society of International Law. He has been consultant for various national and international public institutions, including the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Indonesian Constitutional Court, the European Union and the International Development Law Organization. Daniele Amoroso is Professor of International Law at the University of Cagliari. He is Associate Editor of the Italian Yearbook of International Law as well as Country Coordinator for the Oxford Reports on International Law in Domestic Courts (ILDC). Giovanni Zarra is Adjunct Professor of International Law at Federico II University of Naples and a Visiting scholar at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law (Hamburg). He is also a Founder and Chair of the Italian Below 40 arbitration society and member of the journal "The Law of International Trade", of the scientific committee of the "Treatise on Arbitration Law" and of the book Series "Legal Culture and International Flows".