Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2brh9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T20:52:00.307Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Sovereignty over Natural Resources: Balancing Rights and Duties. By Nico Schrijver. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. Pp. xxix, 452.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2019

Catherine Adcock Admay
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content.
Image of the first page of this content. For PDF version, please use the ‘Save PDF’ preceeding this image.'
Type
Book Review Essay
Information
International Journal of Legal Information , Volume 25 , Issue 1-3: Symposium Issue. Human Rights - Global Issues and Information Sources , 1997 , pp. 238 - 244
Copyright
Copyright © 1996 by the International Association of Law Libraries 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Cf. Permanent Sovereignty Over Natural Resources in International Law: Principle and Practice, Kamal Hossain & Subrata Roy Chowdhury (eds.) (1984) (collection of essays including one co-written by the author, “Permanent sovereignty, foreign investment and state practice”).Google Scholar

2 Followers of doctrinal debates will of course note that Schrijver's “pragmatism” does not escape the foundational questions embodied in competing doctrines. The developments Schrijver describes are incompatible with a rigorous “Calvo” or national standard approach and embrace the application of international law, albeit in its evolved form. A difficult legal question, helpfully acknowledged by the author, is what to make as a legal matter of this state practice.Google Scholar

3 Schrijver is a long-time contributor to the International Law Association's articulations of the ongoing development of international law and frequently cites the ILA's Seoul Declaration (1986) as useful for understanding the evolution of “permanent sovereignty” law. In the 80's the author served on the ILA's Committee on Legal Aspects of a New International Economic Order, on the subcommittee charged with studying the principle of permanent sovereignty. See supra n.1 at Pref. Currently Schrijver is the General Rapporteur of the ILA's Committee on Legal Aspects of Sustainable Development.Google Scholar

4 Students employing this book would do well to consult Appendix II frequently so as not to be misled about the extent of treaty support for the principle of “permanent sovereignty.” For example, in the concluding chapter, while recapitulating the legal support for the principle, Schrijver refers to five primary treaties, only three of which are in force (“The Chilean initiative…led to the inclusion in Article 1 of the UN Covenants on Human Rights (1966), and subsequently in the Conventions on State Succession (1978 and 1983) and the 1981 African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, of a right of peoples to free disposal of natural resources”) (emphasis added) (p. 370). A student making use of the Appendix would readily determine that the Conventions on the Law of Succession are not yet in force, leaving whatever legal import is to be drawn from the inclusion of the principle of “permanent sovereignty” in their text to be of (at best) a customary, rather than conventional, nature.Google Scholar

5 The author's treatment of the first two questions makes clear that he aims only to add a few paragraphs to an established set of debates.Google Scholar