Chapter 3 highlights several instances of State practice where the reciprocity paradigm continues to influence belligerent reprisals. Its bearing emerges from those formalizations of the mechanism that stress the purpose of restoring the balance in rights and obligations unduly disturbed by a breach of the laws of armed conflict. The chapter will first retrace this interest in several positions expressed by States before, during, and in the aftermath of the Geneva Diplomatic Conference that led to the adoption of the 1977 Additional Protocols to the 1949 Geneva Conventions. It will then focus on the provisions of military manuals, with a particular focus on US practice and the latest Department of Defense Law of War Manual. Finally, it will provide an extensive and, under many respects, unprecedented analysis of the Italian case-law on World War II atrocities: this judicial practice, which has been revived only recently, has brought to the fore several elements that are strongly associated with reciprocity. The chapter will thus highlight notable examples in which the reciprocity paradigm contributes to defining the purpose and function of belligerent reprisals.

This chapter addresses the suggestion that for a special regime to exist, community members must be engaged in a joint enterprise. In the context of international law, to claim that a group of international law specialists is engaged in a joint enterprise is to assert that they do what they do based on the idea that some certain state of affairs is desirable. As Chapter 4 argues, in the context of international law, the existence of such a presupposition can be inferred from the actual pursuit of those specialists of a distinct state of affairs, and the way in which they perform assignments.

This chapter refines the concept of constitutional symmetry and anticipates some potential objections. Contrary to what skeptics might assert, judges can reliably assess whether particular constitutional understandings are symmetric or not. In addition, favoring symmetry is valuable even though political alignments may shift in the future, and arguable asymmetries in the Constitution itself are not a reason to disfavor symmetric interpretations of provisions whose meaning is debatable. Symmetric interpretation also addresses contemporary challenges better than competing proposals to embrace “proportionality” in rights adjudication, give greater weight to existing precedent, or pursue one contemporary constitutional vision or another in no-holds-barred fashion. For judges who embrace an ethic of symmetric interpretation, a preference for symmetry should hold the greatest purchase in crafting general understandings of discrete constitutional provisions rather than overall interpretive theories or case-specific results, and judges should favor symmetric understandings even if their colleagues do not.

I argue that in some circumstances the capacity for voluntary agreement making can be an adequate realization of the All-Affected principle. The basic idea is that one can, with this capacity, attempt to advance one’s interests by entering into voluntary agreements with others. The All-Affected Principle can be satisfied if persons are able to enter into agreements with those whose actions affect them or with those who can advance their interests. Persons should have an equal say or a say proportionate to their legitimate interests and this can be realized in voluntary agreement making, or so I shall argue. I draw an analogy between democratic decision making traditionally conceived and voluntary agreement making. This helps us see how we can define appropriate procedural norms for the evaluation of processes of voluntary agreement making in both market and international contexts. I argue that fair voluntary agreement in markets and international decision-making is a realization of the same principle as fair collective decision-making in democracy only one is for decentralized decision making and the other is for centralized decision making.

Chapter 5 commences by retracing how, beginning in Nuremberg, the reasonable person entered the battlefield in the form of the reasonable military commander. Subsequently the chapter explores two challenges that confront the concept of the reasonable person on the battlefield and beyond. The first challenge consists in the fact that it is easier to empathise with people who are close to us. In the theatre of war, this raises the question whether the reasonable person, when acting as the reasonable military commander, can meaningfully balance the interests of civilians on opposite sides. The second challenge relates to the fact that it is more difficult for powerful people such as military commanders (or judges) to take the perspective of others and to empathise with them.

Chapter 2 outlines the contemporary legal framework of IHL, examining the treaty and customary laws that govern conduct in armed conflict, and exploring the fundamental principles of the law. The distinction between the jus in bello and the jus ad bellum is explained, as well as some of the different terms used in IHL (Hague Law, Geneva Law, war vs armed conflict, etc). The main sources of IHL are explained – treaties and customary international humanitarian law. The chapter then explains the main principles governing IHL – distinction, discrimination, military necessity, proportionality, prohibition on unnecessary suffering, neutrality and humanity.

This chapter analyses the legal framework for the use of facial recognition technology (FRT) in the public sector in Germany, with a particular emphasis on the pertinent German data protection and police laws. Under German law, a legal basis is required for these real-world applications of FRT. The article discusses whether the pertinent laws provide such legal basis and what limits they impose.

Chapter 4 examines the wave of cases before international courts and tribunals (ICTs) against the most innovative tobacco control measures, focusing in particular on Philip Morris v Uruguay (ICSID) and Australia – Plain Packaging (WTO). It contends that the alleged ineffectiveness of the tobacco control measures was one of the key arguments of the claimants, who supported their claims by submitting a hefty amount of evidence. These evidentiary challenges presented novel and demanding tasks for adjudicators of ICTs. Against this backdrop, this chapter first analyses the nature and features of the evidentiary challenges to tobacco control measures (Section 4.2). Second, it reviews how the ICTs have assessed them, zooming in on the interpretation of flexibilities and the use of different sources of evidence (Section 4.3). The picture that emerges from this chapter is that of unnecessary, manufactured complexity. Shifting the discussions on tobacco control measures from the WHO/FCTC to trade and investment ICTs, the tobacco industry has effectively managed to masterfully use international law to its own advantage. It has reframed the debate, all while starting expensive and lengthy judicial proceedings that have taken almost a decade to be concluded.

This chapter addresses the tensions between the high level of independence granted to the European Central Bank (ECB) under the Treaties and its accountability. In a first step, it sets out the legal framework of monetary policy within the system of the European System of Central Banks and explains in more detail the quantitative easing programmes of the ECB. It goes on to provide a summary of the back-and-forth litigation on the scope of monetary policy between the Court of Justice and the Bundesverfassungsgericht in Gauweiler and Weiss. Next, the chapter focuses on the judicial review of the monetary policy decisions by the Court of Justice and the national courts. Both these sections follow the same structure: first, they analyse access to courts and remedies; and second, they show how the courts under analysis approached the principles of equality and solidarity, for the purposes of achieving the common interest. The chapter closes with an examination of judicial interactions between EU and national courts and the role these play in the legal accountability of the ECB.

This chapter considers the criteria for collective self-defence that are shared with individual self-defence. It is uncontentious to say that the same criteria that apply to individual self-defence – armed attack, necessity, proportionality, the reporting requirement, and the ‘until clause’ – also apply to collective self-defence. Indeed, this is an inevitable consequence of the way the concepts appear in Article 51 of the UN Charter. The nature and application of these criteria in the context of individual self-defence have been examined at great length in the existing literature. This chapter therefore does not provide in-depth analysis of all of their aspects. That said, it does provide a brief overview of these requirements to ensure that this book presents a comprehensive picture of the operation of collective self-defence today. The chapter’s main focus, though, is to examine how the operation of these criteria works specifically in the context of collective self-defence actions, which is something that has been largely overlooked in scholarship.