A framing case study examines Chinese militarization of the Spratly Islands, located in the South China Seas. Then the chapter provides an overview of the law of the sea. The chapter discusses: (1) the historical evolution of rules that govern the sea, including principles of customary international law; (2) how states have used modern treaties to create zones of authority, including maritime zones, water rights, and seabed rights; and (3) how states resolve maritime boundary disputes.

A framing case study examines Russia’s 2007 cyberattacks on Estonia. Then the chapter examines how states break international law. The chapter first discusses the law of state responsibility, including: (1) determining responsibility by assessing attribution and wrongfulness; and (2) the consequences of state responsibility, such as cessation, prevention, and reparation. The chapter then examines various theoretical accounts of why states break international law, including the enforcement, managerial, and flexibility perspectives.

A framing case study describes the Paris Climate Agreement and the worldwide movement to combat climate change. The chapter then discusses international environmental law. The chapter first discusses important concepts from environmental law, its historical evolution, and major principles. It then describes how states have attempted to protect the environment in the realm of the atmosphere, water, and living resources. Finally, the chapter examines how international environmental law interacts with topics discussed earlier in the book, including: trade, investment, human rights, and armed conflict.

This chapter explains the sections of the Act and the principles of common law concerning competence and compellability of witnesses and how evidence can be adduced from witnesses. Adducing evidence, in contrast to admitting evidence, refers to the witness giving evidence in court.

This chapter also discusses certain categories of witnesses who are called to give evidence (complainants in sexual assault and rape cases, children, and people who are cognitively impaired) and the special arrangements that have been introduced to alleviate any disadvantage when such witnesses give evidence. The chapter then focuses on one of the most important aspects of our adversarial system – the proving of facts by having witnesses give oral evidence. In court, witnesses are often examined in three stages: examination-in-chief, cross-examination, and re-examination. The chapter explains the rules pertaining to refreshing memory in and out of court and the rule in Browne v Dunn. Finally, it briefly considers adducing documents and other types of evidence.

In this chapter, we take the perspective of the sociology of language, focusing first on language maintenance and shift in historical settings. We then expand the discussion to include issues of language vitality and of reversing language shift, based on examples for seventeenth-century Dunkirk and twentieth-century Constantinople. A more general perspective of language policy and planning is subsequently developed, including crucial notions such as status planning, corpus planning and language-in-education planning. Examples and case studies are taken from a variety of languages, including Hebrew and Dutch. The Dutch case also serves to illustrate language planning at the level of the nation, and as a function of historical nationalism. The final part of the chapter addresses isssues such as language conflict, the invisibilisation of languages, both in discourse and in practice, and linguistic genocide. We discuss examples from the Habsburg Empire, Belgium, the German–Danish–Frisian area and the Menominee people in Wisconsin.

Tendency and coincidence evidence is a special class of circumstantial evidence. It is used either on its own, or as an adjunct to other forms of evidence for the purpose of showing the accused has/had a tendency to act or think in a certain way or was necessarily involved in a series of events that cannot otherwise be explained. This chapter examines these two categories of evidence and the rules for their admissibility that apply in both civil and criminal proceedings. Part 3.6 of the Act (ss 94–101) regulates and governs the admission of tendency and coincidence evidence.

The chapter will then examine two major thresholds for admission of these types of evidence. First, the evidence must have ‘significant probative value’. This concept is connected to the test of relevance in s 55. Second, where the prosecution is adducing the evidence in criminal proceedings, it must satisfy the additional hurdle of s 101(2): the ‘probative value of the evidence substantially outweighs any prejudicial effect it may have on the defendant’. Finally, the chapter will consider the circumstances where such evidence is admitted for a purpose other than proving tendency or coincidence.