The 1987 Philippine Constitution entrenched the right to human dignity – a concept that the Philippine Supreme Court has invoked since the 1940s. This chapter argues that Filipino justices have been using“dignity”or “human dignity”to avoid a strict originalist or textualist interpretation of constitutional provisions. They cite dignity as justification to expand existing constitutional rights or to uphold governmental actions that facilitate full enjoyment of such rights. They employ the dignity language mainly to further individual self-fulfilment, autonomy, or self-realization, subject only to select community interests that are expressly recognized in the Constitution. Such understanding and use of dignity in judicial interpretation has been largely shaped by culturally traumatic historical events, Catholic teachings, and nonmunicipal laws. Despite almost eighty years of invoking dignity in judicial interpretation and adjudication, however, the right to human dignity has yet to be consistently and faithfully used for what it was meant to be – a standard principle of interpretation to which Filipino justices must adhere in human rights adjudication.

The state we now call Australia emerged through successive worlds. The old worlds did not disappear, but persist to this day. From time to time their unresolved legal contradictions burst into the present to pose radical challenges to the dominant legal order in the continent. This chapter retells the legal history of Australia through three successive worlds. The first world is the ancient history and unfinished business of inter-national relationships between First Nations, and between them and the settler state. The second world is the British Empire, a global state that aimed to impose a single legal order over its imperial jurisdictions. The third world is the international system of sovereign states that covers the globe today. If Australians have pursued a ‘rules-based order,’ this pursuit has always reflected their own conflicting desires for the liberation and domination of neighbouring peoples, lands and seas.

In one of the splendid essays brought together in his Personality in Politics, published just after World War II, British politician and civil servant Sir Arthur Salter speculates about why the USA failed to ratify the League of Nations Covenant, the brainchild of US President Woodrow Wilson. First, Sir Arthur suggests, Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, a one-time supporter of the idea behind the League, was embroiled in “bitter personal enmity” with Wilson, for reasons that have long remained unclear. Sir Arthur suggests that Lodge’s support could have made a decisive difference: it would most likely have resulted in further support by seven more senators, which would have been enough to secure the required two-thirds majority in the US Senate. But the personal relationship between Lodge and Wilson was such that this never happened.

The intellectual historian John Pocock once observed that with the rise of commercialization, the status of citizens was no longer seen as a function of their actions and their virtues but came to be constructed in juridical terms, in terms of rights and of ownership of things. He posits an opposition between virtue (part of a political way of life) and rights (part of a commercial way of life) that was eventually bridged with the help of the social notion of manners – and this might help explain why we associate the virtue of prudence with a certain kind of prudishness.

Democracy, sovereignty, citizenship, and the rule of law are foundational yet contested concepts. Their foundational role has been extensively discussed with reference to modern nation-states and global order, and their contested quality has come to the fore through norm contestation. This chapter suggests that contestation’s move into the limelight represents an opportunity to address the future of democracies. It argues that first, norm contestedness is expected due to its value- and practice-based roots. Second, contestedness has implications for everyday norm-use and academic norm-conceptualization. This chapter conceives norms and their multiple contestations as the constitutive ‘glue’ of global ordering rather than as a ‘means’ towards implementing governance rules. This chapter identifies a conceptual gap between state-negotiated norms of global governance and societal contestation of norms. It recalls Tully’s ‘Unfreedom of the Moderns’ claim and the central role of agonism in including the multitude of affected stakeholders in establishing norms of governance. Using the cycle-grid model, this chapter frames democracy from below.

This chapter tells the remarkable story of how, in the late nineteenth century, Gentili was revived and presented as a challenger to Grotius for the broad title of “true founder of international law.” While in the end he did not become as famous as Grotius – and later Vitoria – across the literature on the history of international law, he was pushed to center stage by a group of prominent individuals who claimed he was potentially the true founder of international law, and on this basis, he eventually came to occupy a newly important place in the history of international law, particularly within histories of the laws of war.

In a legally and politically pluralistic world, multiple actors often claim authority over the same spaces or subjects. Democratic theory must therefore find democratic ways for various actors to coordinate, negotiate, and contest their respective authority claims. Some such practices are well established. Sometimes, actors choose to divide authority between them, as in federal arrangements. In other cases, they engage in shared decision-making, as in consociation systems. This chapter focuses on a less studied set of practices termed ‘conditional authority’. When actors engage in practices of conditional authority, each party accepts and accommodates the independent authority of the other, but only subject to certain conditions. Such practices allow parties to negotiate the boundaries of their respective claims and manage conflict without requiring either a division of authority (federalism) or the presence of co-decision mechanisms (consociationalism). Drawing on examples from the European Union and the relationship between Canada and Indigenous peoples, this chapter argues that practices of conditional authority represent an important and novel form of pluralist praxis.

The introduction seeks to set the research questions to be explored throughout the book: what is the nature of the human relationship with nature, what are the central ideologies and assumptions that inform the management of the human–wildlife relationship, how are these ideologies reflected in law and legal institutions and, finally, how do they need to be changed. It outlines the approach the book will take in order to answer these fundamental questions.

Chapter 4 presents international wildlife law as an institutional governance system relevant to local responses to human–wildlife conflict. It finds that there is a lack of any real ‘conflict’ language within the framework and this limits the ability of international law to deal with the problem at the outset. Further, the value orientations discussed within Chapters 2 and 3 are all present in international wildlife law to some extent and so the framework has the same conflict of values that are present in situations of human–wildlife conflict. The chapter traces the development of ‘dominance’ in international law and finds that there are specific principles and legal developments that continue to prevent a positive relationship that is beneficial to both people and wildlife. In addition, the underlying constraints of capitalism, neo-liberalism and sustainable development are discussed. Finally, this part posits that the failure of international law to implement a meaningful interpretation of intrinsic value and animal welfare has meant that such language has not been able to minimise the damage done by the dominant framework. The chapter concludes with suggestions for eco-vulnerability principles to be incorporated into international law.

The conclusions reached in Chapter 8 centre on the formulation of liberal autonomy in our wildlife laws and policies. Throughout the book it was demonstrated that autonomy has been created and maintained by a dominant neo-liberal and capitalist paradigm because it serves and furthers that paradigm. This relationship between autonomy and neo-liberalism creates a hierarchy that serves western notions of power and control. The law is a tool that has been used to this end. Further, these themes dictate our relationship with wildlife because the law as an institution creates and maintains these themes in wildlife governance. Instead, the research suggests that we need a broader and more inclusive view of the relationship, which extends outside of the dominant paradigm. The conclusions foreground a possible move away from the promotion of autonomy as the basis of our laws and policies and a move towards a response to vulnerability that builds resilience. This can be achieved with further focus on inclusive collaborative governance, traditional ecological knowledge, compassion, emotion and other forms of knowledge and an acknowledgement of the intrinsic value of wildlife and the environment as a whole.

This chapter covers Germany’s view on international environmental law and international watercourses. In doing so, it deals with Germany’s position on decommissioning oil platforms in the context of Shell’s activities in the North Sea.

In this chapter Germany’s positions on Antarctica, the law of the sea and on air and space law are examined. Concerning the law of the sea, Germany’s response to the Turkey-Libya memorandum of understanding is criticised as one-sided. Further, Germany’s position on migrant rescue operations in the Mediterranean are addressed and criticised as often vague or inexistent. Regarding the South China Sea dispute, it is asserted that Germany takes a more outspoken and active position while avoiding an open and direct confrontation with China. In light of the increasing importance of the Arctic region, Germany developed new policy guidelines in which more restrictive regulation is advocated. In the last part, air and space law, Germany’s activities in preventing an arms race in outer space are addressed, paying particular attention to United Nations negotiations. Moreover, Germany’s criticism of India over an anti-satellite missile test is evaluated as a call for a legally binding instrument prohibiting the destruction of space objects.

This chapter deals with Germany’s perspective on and activities in the United Nations and other international organisations. Germany announced that it would run again for membership of the Human Rights Council. Although Germany was elected, there are signs that not every State supports the country’s human rights policy. Criticism of Syria by the German ambassador to the UN during a session on the USA’s recognition of Israel’s annexation of the occupied Syrian Golan is found to be rather unusual. In declining to regard a Ukrainian language law as a matter of international peace and security, Germany inconsistently adopts a restrictive view on what falls within the mandate of the Security Council. Additionally, Germany’s attempts to put the human rights situation in the DPRK and climate change on the Security Council agenda are covered. Also discussed are Germany’s insistence on the immunity of a German-Tunisian UN arms expert; and Germany voting against an anti-Israel decision at the World Health Assembly in a move towards a new German policy on resolving the Middle East situation in UN bodies.

This chapter is concerned with Germany’s stand on State responsibility and liability. Regarding the former, the German position on State responsibility in the context of arms exports to Yemen is explored. Germany’s reading of the Nicaragua judgment is found to be both unnecessary and incorrect. Further, Germany’s differentiation between ‘bearing responsibility’ and ‘being responsible’ is assessed as being well founded in the context of a missile attack carried out on Saudi Arabia. Concerning the dispute with Greece on war reparations stemming from the two World Wars, Germany’s rejection of claims of reparations, grounded in the opinion that twhe issue is settled, is presented and discussed.

This chapter delves into Germany’s stand on the peaceful settlement of disputes and the International Court of Justice. Germany facilitated talks with the leaders of the Greek Cypriot and the Turkish Cypriot communities, along with the UN secretary-general in Berlin. Although Germany spoke of providing ‘good services’, it meant ‘good offices’, while Germany’s role should not be overestimated.