Community Interests Across International Law

This book explores the extent to which contemporary international law expects states to take into account the interests of others - namely third states or their citizens - when they form and implement their policies, negotiate agreements, and generally conduct their relations with other states.

It systematically considers the various manifestations of what has been described as 'community interests' in many areas regulated by international law and observes how the law has evolved from a legal system based on more or less specific consent and aimed at promoting particular interests of states, to one that is more generally oriented towards collectively protecting common interests and values. Through essays by experts in the field, this book explores topics such as the sources of international law and the institutional aspects of developing the law and covers a range of areas within the law.

Eyal Benvenisti, Whewell Professor of International Law, University of Cambridge Faculty of Law, Georg Nolte, Professor of Public Law and International Law, Humboldt University Berlin

Eyal Benvenisti is Whewell Professor of International Law at the University of Cambridge and the Director of the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law. He is also Professor of Law at Tel Aviv University and Global Visiting Professor at New York University School of Law. He was Visiting Professor at Yale, Harvard, Toronto, Columbia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and gave a special course at The Hague Academy of International Law (2013). Benvenisti's areas of research and teaching are international law, constitutional law and administrative law. He is Project Director for the "GlobalTrust - Sovereigns as Trustees of Humanity" research project, funded by an ERC Advanced Grant. Benvenisti is a Member, Institut de droit international, the co-Editor of the British Yearbook of International Law, and also on the Editorial Board of the American Journal of International Law.


Georg Nolte is Professor of Public Law and International Law at Humboldt University Berlin. He was Visiting Fellow at Oxford, Paris II, Wissenschaftskolleg Berlin, and Princeton, and gave a special course at the Hague Academy of International Law (2017). He is a member of the International Law Commission of the United Nations (since 2007), an Associate Member, Institut de droit international, and was President of the German Society of International Law from 2013-2017. His areas of research are international law and constitutional law. He is Principal Investigator in the Berlin Potsdam Research Group "The International Rule of Law - Rise or Decline?"