Stephen C. Neff

Bio: Stephen C. Neff is an academic researcher from Center for Global Development. The author has contributed to research in topics: International law & Public international law. The author has an hindex of 11, co-authored 41 publications receiving 536 citations. Previous affiliations of Stephen C. Neff include University of Edinburgh.

War and the law of nations

Abstract: Table of cases Table of treaties Abbreviations Introduction Part I. War as Law Enforcement (to 1600): 1. Ares and Athena 2. Loving enemies and hating sin Part II. New Forces Stirring (1600-1815): 3. War in due form 4. Dissension in the ranks Part III. War as State Policy (1815-1919): 5. Collisions of naked interest 6. Tame and half-hearted war: intervention, reprisal and necessity 7. Civil strife Part IV. Just Wars Reborn (1919- ): 8. Regulating war 9. A farewell to war? 10. New fields of battle Conclusion Bibliography.

Human Rights in Africa: Thoughts on the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights in the Light of Case Law from Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland

Abstract: THERE is nothing new about the proposition that the international human rights movement reflects, to a large extent, the liberal, individualistic tradition of civil and political liberties as developed in such countries as Great Britain, the United States and France.1 There is something very new, on the other hand, in the present attempt by the Organisation of African Unity to embody a list of collective or peoples' rights in a human rights convention that provides for the enforcement of those rights.2 For some time now, the belief has been expressed that the world must move beyond the standard Western-oriented civil and political rights. Only now, however, with the drafting in 1981 of the Banjul Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights,3 are serious steps being taken in that direction.

Justice among Nations: A History of International Law

Abstract: "Justice among Nations" tells the story of the rise of international law and how it has been formulated, debated, contested, and put into practice from ancient times to the present. Stephen Neff avoids technical jargon as he surveys doctrines from natural law to feminism, and practices from the Warring States of China to the international criminal courts of today.Ancient China produced the first rudimentary set of doctrines. But the cornerstone of later international law was laid by the Romans, in the form of natural law--a universal law that was superior to early laws and governments. As medieval European states came into contact with non-Christian peoples, from East Asia to the New World, practical solutions had to be devised to the many legal quandaries that arose. In the wake of these experiences, international legal doctrine began to assume its modern form in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.New challenges in the nineteenth century encompassed the advance of nationalism, the rise of free trade and European imperialism, the formation of international organizations, and the arbitration of disputes. Innovative doctrines included liberalism, the nationality school, and solidarism. The twentieth century witnessed the formation of the League of Nations and a World Court, but also the rise of socialist and fascist states and the advent of the Cold War. Yet the collapse of the Soviet Union brought little respite. As Neff makes clear, further threats to the rule of law today come from environmental pressures, genocide, and terrorism.

The territorial trap: The geographical assumptions of international relations theory

Abstract: Even when political rule is territorial, territoriality does not necessarily entail the practices of total mutual exclusion which dominant understandings of the modern territorial state attribute to it. However, when the territoriality of the state is debated by international relations theorists the discussion is overwhelmingly in terms of the persistence or obsolescence of the territorial state as an unchanging entity rather than in terms of its significance and meaning in different historical‐geographical circumstances. Contemporary events call this approach into question. The end of the Cold War, the increased velocity and volatility of the world economy, and the emergence of political movements outside the framework of territorial states, suggest the need to consider the territoriality of states in historical context. Conventional thinking relies on three geographical assumptions ‐ states as fixed units of sovereign space, the domestic/foreign polarity, and states as ‘containers’ of societies...

Democratic states and commitment in international relations

Abstract: Making credible commitments is a formidable problem for states in the anarchic international system. A long-standing view holds that this is particularly true for democratic states in which changeable public preferences make it difficult for leaders to sustain commitments over time. However, a number of important elements in the values and institutions that have characterized the liberal democratic states should enhance their ability to sustain international commitments. Indeed, an examination of the durability of international military alliances confirms that those between democratic states have endured longer than either alliances between nondemocracies or alliances between democracies and nondemocracies.

The African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights

Abstract: The government of Burundi ratified this Organization of African Unity Charter on human rights on August 30, 1989; the government of Cameroon ratified it on September 18, 1989; and the government of Ghana ratified it on March 1, 1989. Relevant provisions of the Charter are reproduced in the Appendix to Annual Review of Population Law, Vol. 13, 1986 under section 410.

Tax Havens and the Commercialization of State Sovereignty

Abstract: Over the past three decades there has been a spectacular rise in the number of microstates serving as tax havens and bogus locations for actual or phantom corporations. Most, but not all, of these havens — these “paradis fisscaux” as the French, with some irony, call them are small tourist resorts. Of the seventy or so tax havens identi ed in recent counts, most serve as mere booking centers for the larger nancial centers of London, Tokyo, and New York. Yet the combined effect of tax havens on the world economy is staggering: According to some estimates, as much as half of the world's stock of money either resides in tax havens or passes through them.