Private Interests and Private Law Regulation in Public International Law Jurisdiction

Abstract

Abstract This chapter focuses on private interests and private law regulation in public international law jurisdiction, and discusses how questions of private law are generally marginalized in favour of a focus on public law, particularly criminal law. This is surprising and unfortunate for two main reasons. The first is that private law issues played a central role in the development of public international law jurisdictional principles. The second is that public international lawyers have, in a range of other contexts, increasingly recognized the significance of private law regulation, and the ‘public’ function which it can play in pursuing particular state interests. Recognizing the significance of private law jurisdiction presents, however, some important challenges to the way in which public international law jurisdiction has become to be understood.