Akehurst's Modern Introduction to International Law

Rating:
Summary: A very good international law book
Review: "Akehurst's Modern Introduction to International Law" by Peter Malanczuk is one of the best books on International Law for scholars and students of law, now a days. The text was re-written by Professor Peter Malanczuk (Erasmus University, Rotterdam) with aditional information based on the new developments like International Environmental Law or International Economic Law.

Certainly the basics of the book correspond to older editions, but new chapters make it a clear example of an "International Law" book than a modest "Introduction".

The text is well written and the concepts are in order. However, definitions about important international legal institutions were missed, for example, International Environmental Law, Custom, etc. These and other definitions are important for students in order to have clarity on the institutions and the subject.

The book, however, is well structured, keeping the interest of the reader on the topics of International Law and giving information on every topic to search further on in other sources.

I hope that the book will have translation to other languages.

Rating:
Summary: A very good international law book
Review: "Akehurst's Modern Introduction to International Law" by Peter Malanczuk is one of the best books on International Law for scholars and students of law, now a days. The text was re-written by Professor Peter Malanczuk (Erasmus University, Rotterdam) with aditional information based on the new developments like International Environmental Law or International Economic Law.

Certainly the basics of the book correspond to older editions, but new chapters make it a clear example of an "International Law" book than a modest "Introduction".

The text is well written and the concepts are in order. However, definitions about important international legal institutions were missed, for example, International Environmental Law, Custom, etc. These and other definitions are important for students in order to have clarity on the institutions and the subject.

The book, however, is well structured, keeping the interest of the reader on the topics of International Law and giving information on every topic to search further on in other sources.

I hope that the book will have translation to other languages.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting and informative
Review: As a student studying Political Economy, and hoping to pursue International Law at the graduate level - I find this book to be informative and an enjoyable read. Not only has the author taken steps to make sure the content is interesting and detailed, but the material is also unusually absorbing and has me "hooked".

Rating:
Summary: Best introductory text available
Review: Building on Akehurst's sound work, Malanczuk provides an accessible but not simplistic introduction to the field. While not as practice-oriented as, for example, Brownlie's <Principles of International Law>, it has a theoretical component that other texts generally lack. It is also - for an introductory text - a very good first point of reference.

Rating:
Summary: Quite difficult to read
Review: This book is quite difficult to read. The books show importnat text in italics (sometimes) not even bold, different font type etc. You really don't know what's importnat and what's not until you get it on exam. Very very difficult to navigate within a text and do a lookup of important terms or topics. The index at the end of book is also very limited. The design is like of a paperback novel - just text, text and text, with very little differences in text. The only bold words are titles of chapters and subchapters. This has been so far the most difficult textbook to read I have ever had and I usually don't have problems reading any kind of textbook.
On the other hand the information within is invaluable, and give you clear idea of what is what and what matters in international law. Sometimes the explanations and text is not well-written, some places it reads like if you are reading a legal document rather than a textbook.
The book provides a generous sample of cases.
Authors should consider improving page layout and design, and writing in a bit lighter tone.

Rating:
Summary: great book
Review: this was the best book I ever read, Yeah!