Vademecum of International Law (Tomáš Mach, anglicky)

Vademecum of International law, as the label of this textbook indicates, isa brief handbook of public international law. The objective of this textbookis to provide its readers with a coherent introduction into the study of publicinternational law. This textbook therefore explains the main concepts andinstitutions of public international law. In doing so, where appropriate, the texttakes into consideration historic origins and development of the respectiveinstitutions of public international law, as well as the historic development ofpublic international law as a whole.This textbook also deliberately includes extensive quotations of bothprimary texts (such as court decisions or texts of international treaties) as wellas thoughts of influential writers in the respective fields of public internationallaw. The resort to extensive quotations should provide the reader with firsthand resources without the (always subjective) deformation of the respectivesource via paraphrasing.This textbook is not intended to serve as an all-encompassing textbookor encyclopedia. After all, for that it would be too short in the first place.The objective here is to provide the reader with a basic introduction intothe key areas of public international law, foundations upon which onecan built further study. The reason is that this book is primarily intendedas a main textbook for a one semester course called Introduction to PublicInternational Law taught at the University of West Bohemia in Pilsen andfrequented primarily by Erasmus exchange students for whom English is inmost cases a foreign language. In doing so, this textbook leaves out certainareas of public international law that ought to be read elsewhere, inter alia:material maritime law, international criminal law, space law, aviation law,international environmental law, and human rights law. Other areas arediscussed in volume and depth appropriate to a one semester course ina qualifying law degree program.