This is a penetrating critique of the methodology of international law as it had come to be understood and accepted by the generality of international lawyers.

Tony Carty is Professor of International Law at the School of Law at the Beijing Institute of Technology

New Series Editor foreword - Jean d'Aspremont and Iain Scobbie
New introduction - Anthony Carty
Foreword to original - Gillian M. White
Preface to original - Anthony Carty
1 Introduction: a crisis of method in international law
2 Legal doctrine and the development of international legal concepts
3 General customary law
4 Doctrinal conceptions of the law relating to territory
5 'Pure' theories of treaty law: a world without diplomacy
6 Legal doctrine, the principle of non-intervention and the practice of States
7 Legal method, the 'state of nature' and some contemporary issues of
self-determination

Index