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476 NILR 2014
17. J.L. Goldsmith and E.A Posner, The Limits of International Law (Oxford, Oxford University Press 2005).18. A.T. Guzman, How International Law Works: A Rational Choice Theory (Oxford, Oxford University Press 2008).19. L. Henkin, How Nations Behave: Law and Foreign Policy, 2nd edn. (New York, Columbia University Press 1979); L. Henkin, International Law: Politics and Values (The Hague, Kluwer Law International 1995).20. S.V. Scott, International Law and Ideology: Theorizing the Relationship between International Law and International Politics, 5 EJIL (1995) p. 313.21. The author writes, at p. xvi: Although it goes against much of the current ideas about doing legal research with its focus on broad research programs and quantied output on a yearly basis I am convinced that real progress in understanding international law and its relevance for international society is only possible on the basis of the kind of time-consuming research that resulted in this book. Otherwise we will never have more than a supercial understanding of the workings of the law. with which one can only agree.22. J. Lang, Le plateau continental de la Mer du Nord: arrt de la Cour internationale de justice 20 fvrier 1969 (Paris, LGDJ 1970).23. For brief accounts of a number of international cases, see J.E. Noyes, et al., eds., International Law Stories (New York, NY, Foundation Press 2007).
Y. SHANY, Assessing the Effectiveness of International Courts, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2014, xix + 322 pp. ISBN 978-0-19-964329-5. doi:10.1017/S0165070X1400134X
Although this work is published by Oxford University Press in its International Courts and Tribunals Series, it is not an international law treatise. The question whether or to what extent an international tribunal is effective is not a legal question: it cannot be answered by applying legal principles or rules. The question is a political or social one, or indeed a sociological one. The approach adopted therefore draws on sociology and public administration studies, which may be territory little known to many international lawyers. Yet legal issues do arise in this context: the legal and the sociological would appear to intersect in some respects.
The book is, if only in part, a collective work. While the name of Professor Yuval Shany stands alone on the title-page, and the rst section of the book is...