Self-Defense in International Law

Bowett, D.W.Self-Defence in International Law. New York: Praeger, [1958]. xv, 294 pp. Reprinted 2009 by The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd. ISBN-13: 978-1-58477-855-4. ISBN-10: 1-58477-855-5. Cloth. $95.* Bowett observes that the use or threat of force by any state can be a delict, an approved sanction, or a measure taken in self-defense. He examines the evolution of the doctrine in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, with the assumption of the existence of a state's unlimited 'right' to go to war. He then attempts to outline the limited and provisional effects of this right under the U.N. Charter. "Throughout the work there is a refusal to dogmatize or to state in absolute terms any aspect of the 'privilege' of self-defence in its present context. (...) [Bowett] is to be congratulated on producing a timely and scholarly survey of one of the most fundamental, and often abused, sovereign rights known to international law.": K.R. Simmonds, British Year Book of International Law 34 (1958) 432.