Laurie R. Blank, International conflict and security law. Principles of international law series. Edward Elgar Publishing, 2023

• Published date: 01 May 2023
• Author: Wendrila Biswas,Debarun Chakraborty
• Date: 01 May 2023
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/crq.21381

BOOK REVIEW

International conflict and security law

Laurie R. Blank, Principles of international law series. Edward

Elgar Publishing, 2023

Wendrila Biswas

1

| Debarun Chakraborty

2

1

Haldia Institute of Technology, Haldia, India

2

Symbiosis Institute of Business Management, Nagpur, Symbiosis International (Deemed University), Pune, India

Correspondence

Debarun Chakraborty, Symbiosis Institute of Business Management, Nagpur, Symbiosis International

(Deemed University), Pune, India.

Email: debarun84@gmail.com

There seemed to be a growing hope by the end of the Cold War as people envisioned a new era

of peace and a stable world. Though conditions were set for democracy, greater freedom, liber-

alized market, and a more thriving world, countless challenges (like control by international

capital, interventions in Libya, Iraq and Syria triggering extremism, terrorism and refugee crisis,

Russia's economic crisis affecting central Asian countries) were associated with it. Then after

decades, the twenty-first century has been marked by civil strife, the deadliest wars (Iraq war,

Syrian civil war, Afghanistan war, Yemini civil war), a global pandemic, and transnational ter-

rorist networks (such as Al-Qa'ida Core, Boko Haram, Taliban) that destabilized the global

orders. Consequently, there have been significant changes by the end of an era of bipolarity,

enhanced globalization flows, impetuous assertions of claims to rights, an outgrowth of new

technologies, and a focus on international coordination of security policy. Such changes

inspired and ignited the aspirations of citizens of sovereign states as they looked toward their

nations to protect them from indignity, deprivations, harm, insecurity and terror.

On the one hand, these revolutionary transformations have changed the global aspects; on

the other hand, it has redefined international conflict that had led to organized violence posing

a menace to peace and security of the nations. For reducing the risk of superpower military con-

frontation that shatters basic justice, threats of vicious dissolution of states (including weapons

proliferation, environmental degradation, organized crime) and managing inter-state conflicts

(such as Eritrea and Ethiopia, India and Pakistan that impairs a country's functional abilities),

a vast array of international conflict and security laws has been applicable to resolve and restore

durable peace across the globe. The book well delineates the role and impact of international

legal framework in order to prevent hostilities in the states and enable an environment to pre-

serve justice, accountability, and security. The book has a well-knit structure and is organized

into four main segments comprising 12 chapters. The first part of this volume—Conflict Preven-

tion and Collective security includes three chapters that focus on the collective measures and

arrangements of international law system to forestall upsurge of ongoing conflicts and establish

Received: 18 March 2023 Revised: 26 March 2023 Accepted: 27 March 2023

DOI: 10.1002/crq.21381

Conflict Resolution Quarterly. 2023;40:493–496. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/crq © 2023 Wiley Periodicals LLC. 493