Professor James Green will discuss his recent book on the subject, Collective Self-Defence in International Law (CUP), which provides the most detailed and extensive account of collective self-defence to date.
Collective self-defence – the use of military force by one or more states to aid another state that has suffered an armed attack – is a right sanctified in Article 51 of the UN Charter. Recent years have seen an unprecedented increase in the number of collective self-defence claims. It has been the main basis for US-led action in Syria (2014–) and was advanced by Russia in relation to its full-scale invasion of Ukraine (2022–). Tensions are now emerging within the largest collective self-defence organisation, NATO, following US action in Venezuela and threats against Greenland. Yet, there has still been relatively little detailed analysis of collective self-defence in international law.
Professor Green will discuss his recent book on the subject, Collective Self-Defence in International Law (CUP), which provides the most detailed and extensive account of collective self-defence to date. In particular, he will highlight some notable misconceptions about the history and conceptual nature of collective self-defence, and outline the key legal requirements for its operation.
Speaker
Professor James Green is Professor of Public International Law at the University of the West of England (UWE Bristol). He has been a visiting scholar at the University of Oxford (2017–2018) and the University of Michigan (2005). He is the author of Collective Self-Defence in International Law (CUP, 2024), The Persistent Objector Rule in International Law (OUP, 2016 – winner of the European Society of International Law Book Prize), and The International Court of Justice and Self-Defence in International Law (Hart Publishing, 2009 – winner of the Francis Lieber Prize awarded by the American Society of International Law).
Chair
Professor Marco Roscini is Professor of International Law at the University of Westminster. He is also Senior Fellow at NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence (CCDCOE).
Location
B.02, 4–12 Little Titchfield Street, London W1W 7BY
