I Book Review: The Development of Human Rights Law by the Judges of the International Court of Justice
| Published date | 01 June 2008 |
| Date | 01 June 2008 |
| DOI | 10.1177/016934410802600211 |
| Subject Matter | Part D: DocumentationI Book Review |
I Book Reviews
Netherlands Q uarterly of Human R ights, Vol. 26/2 (2008) 285
rights, providing humanitari an ca re, a nd forward ing sta keholders’ cla ims. ‘Ways’
inquires about t he various ways of prac tising nongovernmental activ ism. ‘Sites’
delves into t wo types of ter rain – borders and disaster areas – that have a par ticular
signicance for the political act ivism of the governed. Finally, ‘designs’ looks into two
major and competing designs presiding over the political activism of the governed:
the rst, revolvi ng around the notion of ‘civi l society’ looks into the ability of the
governed to govern themselves; the second deal s mainly with religious activ ism.
Whatever one may thin k of the organisation of the book, it does conta in a
great number of original essays on non-governmental activism, including but not
exclusively, dealing with the eld of human rig hts. anks to its partly French origin,
it provide s an interesting a nd useful insight into the French literatu re in the eld.
e essays, together with the interviews with such leading personalities as Anthony
Romero, the executive director of the A merican Civil Liberties Union, Ga reth Evans,
the di rector of the I nternational Crisis Group, Rony Brauman, the former president
of Médecin s Sans Fronti ères, Peter Lur ie, deputy d irector of P ublic Citizen’s Healt h
Research Group, and Gara L aMarche, vice president and director of US program mes
for the Open Society Institute, make for entert aining and informative readi ng. e
volume should be seen as a rich resource book, a Fundgrube as the German saying
goes, fu ll of information on how NGOs work and the problems and di culties they
encounter.
Shiv R S Bedi, e D evelopment of Human Rights Law by the Judge s of th e
International Court of Justic e, Hart Publish ing, Oxford/Portla nd, 2007, xiii + 488
pp., ISBN: 978–1-84113–576–2*
It should be noted beforehand that Shiv Be di is the Head of the Archives Division
of t he International Court of Justice. at certainly is an advantageous position to
do res earch on the topic of the development of human rights law by the Judges of
the Internat ional Court of Justice (ICJ, Court or World Court). is subject is quite
fascinating and relevant to the study and t he understandi ng of the many facets of
the functioning of t he World C ourt. e book is str uctured in a rather clear a nd
straightforw ard manner. us, aer an introduct ion the author discusses in Pa rt I
the i ssue of the legislative role of judges and human rights law. at is followed by
Parts II and III where he discuss es the issue of the development of hu man rights law
by the judges of the ICJ through respectively contentious cases and advisory opinions.
In terms of st ructure it would probably have been bet ter if the summar y and general
conclusions were oered as a separate part ins tead of being included in the third part
of the book.
* Gentian Zyberi, lec turer and researcher at the Netherl ands Institute of Human Rig hts (SIM),
Utrecht University, the Net herlands.
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