LAND AND MARITIME ZONES OF PEACE IN INTERNATIONAL LAW, by Surya P. Subedi. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996, for the series Oxford Monographs in International Law. 271 pp. Cloth $75.00.

Reviewed by David P. Forsythe, Department of Political Science, University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
 

Professor Subedi, senior lecturer in law at the University of Hull in the United Kingdom, inquires into the legal status of territorial zones of peace. He is interested in efforts by certain states, utilizing intergovernmental organizations like the United Nations General Assembly, to create peaceful and demilitarized maritime areas such as the Indian Ocean, the South Atlantic, and perhaps the Mediterranean Sea. He is also interested in land zones of peace, especially in Asia.

Major military powers such as the United States viewed these efforts by a number of developing countries including Sri Lanka, Brazil, and Nepal, inter alia, with concern, at least during the Cold War. Fearing limitations of their projection of power, the U.S. and others claimed that a majority of states could not legally bind those opposed by the mere passage of non-binding resolutions in international organizations. With regard to maritime zones of peace, the U.S. and others argued that such projected regimes interfered with freedom of the seas and a broad right to national self-defense.

In general, Professor Subedi is sympathetic to legal claims to a collective right to create zones of peace. He takes the standard position that General Assembly resolutions, while not legally binding at the time of adoption, can pass into customary international law. He does not, however, clarify how much state practice combined with OPINIO JURIS is necessary to bind states that object, or whether states can dissent from customary international law and thus not be bound. He believes that maritime zones of peace do not violate general rules pertaining to freedom of the seas, arguing that much of the sea has become RES COMMUNIS and therefore subject to extensive regulation which is compatible with U.N. Charter principles supportive of international peace. Especially concerning land zones of peace, he reasons by analogy to the neutrality of states like Switzerland. If states can, in effect, declare their territory a zone of neutral or impartial peace, Professor Subedi finds no reason why one or more states cannot do likewise for a larger area.

In general, the author of this well-researched and well-written work finds favor with the nonaligned movement during the Cold War and its effort to limit arms races and military-political competition in parts of the world. He therefore believes that zones of peace are now well established as legal regimes in international law, although the specific rules of such regimes, including those pertaining especially to enforcement, are still in the process of being negotiated. He is also in favor of a broad right by a numerical majority of states to legally bind other states over time via customary international law.

The practical importance of this inquiry is open to question, not only because the Cold War has ended but also because of the perpetual problem of whether international law can effectively control powerful states. When Professor Subedi writes (p. 231) that "major maritime States have in general failed to refrain from the activities that are inconsistent with the declarations" in favor of maritime zones of peace, he suggests that such zones, whether legal or not, have had little effect on key state behavior. Thus this book embodies a careful legal study that may prove mostly irrelevant to how the game of international relations is played by determined states. After all, Belgian neutrality before World War II was well founded in international law, but that established law did not control the fate of Belgian territory in 1939.