Articles
Clear explanations of Indian law, written for students: concepts, provisions and the cases that shaped them.
The law of neutrality explains how a state that stays out of a war between other states is protected, and what that state must do in return. One historical episode contains almost the whole subject.
23 min read
This topic deals with the legal protection of three things: biological diversity (the forest), plant varieties and farmers' rights (the field) and traditional knowledge (the village). Each has its own international framework and its own Indian law. The topic is built around three problems, which ar…
15 min read
The law of geographical indications (GI) is the branch of intellectual property that protects names which tell the buyer where a product comes from. Three short disputes show the kind of questions it answers. They are solved at the end of these notes.
19 min read
A creative work, such as a tune, is not lost to its creator when someone else uses it. The basic question behind the theories of IPR is therefore: why should the law treat such a creation as property at all?
9 min read
A small number of leading cases supply many of the rules of Public International Law. Each of them began as a real dispute, and each produced a rule that is needed for examinations and for understanding how States deal with one another. The topic covers 21 leading cases.
54 min read
International Humanitarian Law (IHL) is the body of international law that governs how armed conflict is fought. It answers practical questions that arise on the battlefield. The three problems below are solved at the end of these notes with the exact rule that applies.
24 min read
The World Trade Organisation (WTO) is the international organisation that governs trade between states. This topic covers the functions of the WTO, its history from the 1930s tariff wars through Bretton Woods and GATT to the Marrakesh Agreement, its agreements (the annexes), the two core rules of n…
13 min read
Settlement of international disputes covers the meaning of an international dispute, the duty that the Charter of the United Nations places on States to settle disputes peacefully, the pacific means of settlement, the compulsive means recognised by customary law, the collective measures of the Secu…
20 min read
The United Nations does its work through six principal organs . This topic covers each organ in turn: its composition, its powers and functions, and its voting rules under the Charter of the United Nations, together with the practice that has grown around them.
30 min read
The United Nations (UN) is best understood as the successor to the League of Nations. The League was built on the idea of collective security. Its failures shaped the Charter of the United Nations, which tried to cure each of the League's weaknesses.
11 min read
Asylum and extradition are two mirror-image ideas of public international law.
17 min read
This topic gives a correct legal label to people who move, or who have no State at all: nationals, stateless persons, internally displaced persons (IDPs), immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers. Each label carries different rights and different protectors.
20 min read
