Islam and International Law explores the multi-faceted relationship of Islam and international law. Current debates on Sharia, Islam and the “West” often suffer from prejudice and platitudes. The book seeks to engage such self-centrism by providing a plurality of perspectives, both in terms of interdisciplinary research and geographic backgrounds.

International Law and Islam: Historical Explorations offers a unique opportunity to examine the Islamic contribution to the development of international law in historical perspective. The role of Islam in its various intellectual, political and legal manifestations within the history of international law is part of the exciting intellectual renovation of international and global legal history in the dawn of the twenty-first century. The present volume is an invitation to engage with this thriving development after ‘generations of prejudiced writing’ regarding the notable contribution of Islam to international law and its history.

The goal of this book is to minimize the misunderstandings and conflicts between International law and Islamic law. The objective is to bring peace into justice and justice into peace for the prevention of violations of human rights law, humanitarian law, international criminal law, and impunity.

This important study offers a conceptual analysis of gender and human rights under Islamic law, state law and international law, and extends this analysis to a specific examination of the nature of women's rights in the Islamic tradition. It explores the disparity between the theoretical perspective on women's rights and its applications to Muslim jurisdictions, determined by elements of cultural practices, socio-economic realities and political expediences, and uses the example of Pakistan to demonstrate the divergence between the theory and practice of Islamic law in these jurisdictions. It discusses the concept of an emerging 'operative' Islamic law, which includes principles of Islamic law, secular codes and popular custom and usage.

Armed non-state actors (ANSAs) often have economic aims that international law needs to respond to. This book looks at the aim of Islamic State to create an effective government, with an economically independent regime, which focused on key oilfields in Syria and Iraq. Having addressed Islamic State's quest for energy resources in Iraq and Syria, the book explores the lawfulness of the war with Islamic State from a variety of legal aspects. It has been attempted to make inroads into the most controversial aspects of contradictions in the application of jus ad bellum and jus in bello, particularly when discussing the use of extraterritorial armed force against ANSAs, and the obligation to protect civilian objects, including the natural environment. The question is whether the targeting of energy resources should be regarded as a violation of the laws of armed conflict, even though the war with Islamic State being classified as a non-international armed conflict. Ambitious in scope, the study argues that legal theory and state practice are still problematic as to how and under what conditions states can justify resorting to military force in foreign territory, and to what extent they can target natural resources as being part of state property. Furthermore, it goes on to examine the differences between international and non-international armed conflicts, to establish whether there is any difference in the targeting of energy resources as part of the war-sustaining capabilities of either party. Through an examination of the Islamic State case, the book offers a comprehensive study to close the gaps in jus in bello by contextualising the questions of civilian protection, victimisation and state responsibility by evaluating the US's war-sustaining theory as a justification for the destruction of a territorial state's natural resources that are occupied by ANSAs.

Islam and womena (TM)s human rights entertain an uneasy relationship. Much has been written on the subject. This volume addresses it from a new perspective. It attempts to define some basis for constructive dialogue and interaction in the context of international law and, more precisely, in the context of participation of many Muslim States in the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. Having discovered a constructive potential in both Islam and womena (TM)s human rights, the author concentrates on the role which international law should play in promoting dialogue and constructive interaction. This is done mainly through analysis of the regime of reservations and of the practice of reservations developed in the context of Muslim Statesa (TM) participation in the CEDAW. The basic thesis defended is the following: Islam as articulated in the practice of States and womena (TM)s human rights, as reflected in international instruments, are both results of human activity. Their analysis in this study reveals more commonalities than one might expect. International law should be more attentive to their voices and more innovative in using these commonalities in order to promote constructive dialogue between them and thus help to improve the situation of women suffering from discrimination and inequalities.

The rapid rise of global Islamic Jihadism in the past few decades and the limited success of the anti-terror campaign in halting its expansion have raised hard-hitting questions about how different political actors might preserve and restore the world's peace and security. Since the end of the Second World War, international law has often been the chief instrument employed to address global conundrums of this kind. Nevertheless, international law alone cannot solve this problem. Jihadist groups often cite Islamic law argumentations to justify their combat-related actions against states while rejecting traditional international law rules. On the other hand, some states themselves ignore traditional international law rules to apply their so-called "counterterrorism" measures. The internationally recognized laws of war - created to protect those who do not participate in hostilities - are constantly challenged by jihadist groups and responding states in justification of their combat actions. In Islamic Jihadism and the Laws of War , Dr Omar Mekky explores both sides' legal frameworks, synthesising findings from both English and Arabic sources. Drawing from the author's field expertise as a legal advisor in the Middle East and North Africa, the book narrates how Islamic Jihadism began and evolved, outlines the laws jihadists apply during combat, addresses how states often react in their fights against jihadist groups, and aims for a pragmatic humanitarian legal formula. An essential resource for legal professionals, policymakers, academics, and students, Mekky's book initiates a constructive dialogue between international law and Islamic law.

This book explores a broad range of issues on Islam and international criminal law and justice. Ten authors shed detailed light on the relationship between Islam, Islamic law and Islamic thought and international criminal law.

This book takes an unflinching look at the roles and functions played by the idea of universality in international legal discourses, as well as the narratives of progress that often accompany it. In doing so, it provides a critical appraisal of the mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion attendant to international law and its universalist discursive strategies. Universality is therefore not reduced to the question of the geographical outreach of international law but is instead understood in terms of boundaries. This entails examining how the idea of universality was developed in the dominant vernaculars of international law - primarily English and French - before being universalised and imposed upon international lawyers from all traditions. This analysis simultaneously offers an opportunity to revisit the ideologies that constitute the identity of international lawyers today, as well as the socialisation and legal educational processes that international lawyers undergo. With an emphasis on the binaries that arise from the invocation of the idea of universality in international legal discourses, this book sheds new light on the idea of universality as a fraught site of contestation in international legal discourses.

This Handbook brings together leading scholars and practitioners to examine the prolific body of international laws governing terrorism. It exhaustively covers the global response to terrorism in transnational criminal law, the international law on the