Customer Reviews

International Law Cases and Materials: Cases and Materials (American Casebook Series)

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I had the opportunity to use this textbook several years ago, and found it to be very helpful, and not too heavy on the philosophical faddism found in some other materials on international law. I also had Professor Damrosch as my professor for the course, and found her to be a very good teacher.

International law has taken on new importance in the post-9-11 world, and even non-law students are becoming interested in this critical topic. For example, this book will help you understand why the concept of "imminent threat" is so important in international law. See The Caroline Case (1837) 2 Moore 409.

The reviewer below critiques the editing of the fifth edition. I must admit that I read the fourth edition, and not the fifth. So his criticisms may have merit.

As a general rule, I don't bother to review the casebooks I've been assigned to read (since it's not as though I buy them by choice). But this particular volume was so poorly done that I thought it worth a mention.

Though its bulk is admittedly stunning (I would conservatively estimate its weight at eighty-four pounds), the 1,680-page casebook is frustratingly shallow in clarity and cohesiveness, and as sloppily edited as any written material I've recently encountered: cases are referred to by different names on different pages; citations are inconsistent; and the general tone is as obtuse as anything I've read since first-semester Contracts. I mean no offense to the authors, and I bear them no ill will. But they have together managed to produce the worst casebook that I have encountered as a law student.

The previous reviewer described an earlier edition of this book as "very helpful." For the sake of those who come after me, I very much hope that the Fifth Edition is much closer to the Third than to the Fourth.