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 states 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.