The introduction sets out the scope and objectives of the study, locating it within the relevant literature and diplomatic context of State Party negotiations over parental child abduction.

Chapter 2 examines the background, history and assumptions which underlie the 1980 Hague Abduction Convention. The chapter considers what the Convention was intended to achieve, as well as its evolution in different jurisdictions. The relationship between the 1996 Hague Convention on Jurisdiction and Measures for the Protection of Children and the 1980 Hague Abduction Convention is also addressed as the two Conventions complement each other. Examining the two Conventions side by side illuminates how Morocco, a Muslim Family Law State, adapted its domestic laws to be more in accordance with the Convention when it comes to the interests of children. The chapter also examines fully the question of whether the 1980 Hague Abduction Convention is suited to being a universal instrument. Even if more Muslim Family Law States become party to the Convention, we show why this will not lead to the Convention functioning as envisaged between, on the one hand, Muslim Family Law States and, on the other hand, European, North American, and Australasian states.

An introduction to the history that made the book possible, the diplomatic context from which it arose, and the authors’ acknowledgements to those who have supported this study.

The answers that each political community finds to the law reform questions posed by AI may differ, but a near-term threat is that AI systems capable of causing harm will not be confined to one jurisdiction – indeed, it may be impossible to link them to a specific jurisdiction at all. This is not a new problem in cybersecurity, but different national approaches to regulation will pose barriers to effective regulation exacerbated by the speed, autonomy, and opacity of AI systems. For that reason, some measure of collective action is needed. Lessons may be learned from efforts to regulate the global commons as well as moves to outlaw certain products (weapons and drugs, for example) and activities (such as slavery and child sex tourism). The argument advanced here is that regulation, in the sense of public control, requires active involvement of states. To co-ordinate those activities and enforce global ‘red lines’, this chapter posits a hypothetical International Artificial Intelligence Agency (IAIA), modelled on the agency created after the Second World War to promote peaceful uses of nuclear energy, while deterring or containing its weaponization and other harmful effects.

The increasing autonomy of AI systems is exposing gaps in regulatory regimes that assume the centrality of human actors. Yet surprisingly little attention is given to what is meant by ‘autonomy’ and its relationship to those gaps. Driverless vehicles and autonomous weapon systems are the most widely studied examples, but related issues arise in algorithms that allocate resources or determine eligibility for programmes in the private or public sector. This chapter develops a novel typology that distinguishes three lenses through which to view the regulatory issues raised by autonomy: the practical difficulties of managing risk associated with new technologies, the morality of certain functions being undertaken by machines at all, and the legitimacy gap that is created when public authorities delegate their powers to algorithms.

The rule of law is the epitome of anthropocentrism: humans are the primary subject and object of norms that are created, interpreted, and enforced by humans – made manifest in government of the people, by the people, for the people. Though legal constructs such as corporations may have rights and obligations, these in turn are traceable back to human agency in their acts of creation, their daily conduct overseen to varying degrees by human agents. Even international law, which governs relations among states, begins its foundational text with the words ‘We the peoples…’. The emergence of fast, autonomous, and opaque AI systems forces us to question this assumption of our own centrality, though it is not yet time to relinquish it.

International lawyers are very familiar with the claim that international law has taken a turn to history since the tumultuous decade of the 1990s. As debates over the interpretation of past texts, events, and practices have intensified in the context of a rapidly changing field of international law, history has been presented as offering a silver bullet. While international lawyers are criticised for instrumentalising or mythologising the past in ways that are biased, partisan, and political, professional historical methods are presented as offering an objective, impartial, and evidence-based alternative. This chapter outlines the cross-disciplinary hermeneutic of suspicion that has structured the resulting debates over how the history of international law is understood. It sets out the assumptions underpinning that debate and explores its consequences for the way lawyers and historians represent the nature, functions, potential, role, and limits of international law.

Though worries about the impact of new technology have accompanied many inventions, AI is unusual in that some of the starkest recent warnings have come from those most knowledgeable about the field. Many of these concerns are linked to ‘general’ or ‘strong’ AI, meaning the creation of a system that is capable of performing any intellectual task that a human could – and raising complex questions about the nature of consciousness and self-awareness in a non-biological entity. The possibility that such an entity might put its own priorities above those of humans is non-trivial, but this book focuses on the more immediate challenges raised by ‘narrow’ AI – meaning systems that can apply cognitive functions to specific tasks typically undertaken by a human. The book is organized around the following sets of problems: How should we understand the challenges to regulation posed by the technologies loosely described here as ‘AI systems’? What regulatory tools exist to deal with those challenges and what are their limitations? And what more is needed – rules, institutions, actors – to enable us to reap the benefits offered by AI while minimizing avoidable harm?

As the preceding chapters demonstrate, existing norms, suitably interpreted, are able to deal with many of the challenges presented by AI. But not all. This chapter begins with a survey of guides, frameworks, and principles put forward by states, industry, and intergovernmental organizations. These diverse efforts have led to a broad consensus on half a dozen norms that might govern AI. Far less energy has gone into determining how these might be implemented – or if they are even necessary. Rather than contribute to norm proliferation, the chapter focuses on why regulation is necessary, when regulatory changes should be made, and how it would work in practice. Two specific areas for law reform address the weaponization and the victimization of AI. Regulations aimed at general AI are particularly difficult in that they confront many ‘unknown unknowns’, but uncontrollable or uncontainable AI could pose a threat far more serious than lethal autonomous weapon systems. Additionally, however, there will be a need to prohibit some conduct in which increasingly lifelike machines are the victims – comparable, perhaps, to animal cruelty laws.

The Introduction frames the issue of war economies regulation from an international law perspective and defines the key concepts and frameworks used in the book. It describes the issues that arise at the nexus of economic activity and war, including the militarization of economic activity and the risk of predation, and identifies two kinds of economies as relevant: economic activity for the war and economic activity in the war zone. The chapter concludes by outlining the chapters in the rest of the book.

The book concludes in Chapter 10 with an analysis of the options for the design of strategies for war economy regulation, both in the war zone as well as with respect to the global flows that intersect with violent conflict. The chapter argues that, whether in the defense of human rights, the regulation of armed conflict, or the preservation of international peace and security, there is ample normative content in international law to regulate predatory economic behaviour in the context of irregular warfare. In addition, international institutions have developed an unexpectedly dense body of administrative practice relevant for the regulation of these war economies. However, the normative content and administrative practice remain fragmented and biased in their application. Despite signs of normative coherence in the system, there is at present no consensus on a regulatory strategy for responding to the economic dimensions of today’s wars.

Since the international community adopted the UN Trafficking Protocol nearly two decades ago, our approach to the problem of human trafficking has shifted significantly. With too few traffickers prosecuted and too few victims protected, there is growing recognition of the need for more robust efforts to prevent trafficking in the first instance. Trafficking is not simply the product of deviant, criminal behavior that once rooted out, can be easily eliminated. Also to blame are deeply embedded societal structures that facilitate, and even reward, exploitation – in particular, weak labor and migration frameworks that perpetuate precarity for migrant workers in their search for economic opportunities. Because worker exploitation and trafficking differ in degree, not in kind, addressing worker exploitation more broadly can help prevent the abuses from escalating into trafficking. This Chapter explores how emerging global governance over labor migration – with the recently-adopted UN Global Compact for Safe, Orderly, and Regular Migration and the now-elevated role of the International Organization for Migration – could play a role in preventing human trafficking.

NETs range from afforestation to bioenergy with carbon capture and storage. They are seen by many as instrumental in achieving the mitigation objectives of the Paris Agreement. However, uncertainty remains regarding the technical, economic, and political feasibility of the large-scale deployment of NETs. The focus in this chapter is on whether a state may lawfully presume, for instance in the course of determining its long-term low-greenhouse-gas-emission development pathway under Article 4(19) of the Paris Agreement, that a future large-scale deployment of NETs will be realized. Gareth Davies maintains that that makes perfect sense, not least because conventional mitigation methods are in the same boat (of uncertainty), and that in other respects as well conventional methods are on a continuum with NETs. By contrast, Duncan McLaren and Wil Burns argue that any heavy reliance now on a presumed large-scale availability of NETs in the future would be irresponsible, unethical, and unlawful.

NETs range from afforestation to bioenergy with carbon capture and storage. They are seen by many as instrumental in achieving the mitigation objectives of the Paris Agreement. However, uncertainty remains regarding the technical, economic, and political feasibility of the large-scale deployment of NETs. The focus in this chapter is on whether a state may lawfully presume, for instance in the course of determining its long-term low-greenhouse-gas-emission development pathway under Article 4(19) of the Paris Agreement, that a future large-scale deployment of NETs will be realized. Gareth Davies maintains that that makes perfect sense, not least because conventional mitigation methods are in the same boat (of uncertainty), and that in other respects as well conventional methods are on a continuum with NETs. By contrast, Duncan McLaren and Wil Burns argue that any heavy reliance now on a presumed large-scale availability of NETs in the future would be irresponsible, unethical, and unlawful.

This chapter debates the consistency of the deployment of Solar Radiation Management (SRM) with international law. SRM might help to counter global warming at relatively low cost, but it could also have substantial negative environmental impacts. Jesse Reynolds, reviewing all the relevant international treaties, as well as customary international law, argues that solar geoengineering could be consistent with international law. There is even some evidence, he argues, that solar geoengineering may be required by international law. Kerryn Brent reaches the exact opposite conclusion. She argues that solar geoengineering at scale would violate the no-harm rule and is prohibited by the UNFCCC and other treaties.

This chapter captures the controversy on ‘state extinction’ through climate change. Sea-level rise and changing weather patterns, among other impacts of climate change, are likely to cause some low-lying Small-Island Developing States (SIDS) to be uninhabitable in the coming decades, even before SIDS territory ‘sinks’ out of sight. Academic debates have offered various proposals on what might happen to the remnants of the states concerned, if they continue to exist at all, and the rights of these territorially orphaned entities under various regimes. Sharon concludes that there is one and only one legal avenue for the—very slight—possibility that statehood would continue after the land is gone.