This book conceptualizes international law as an expression of practical reason, focusing on the genesis of modern international law in the essence of the concept of sovereignty. Utilizing the philosophical method of R.G. Collingwood, the essence of sovereignty is sought in a dialectical model drawn from the philosophy of David Hume. John Martin Gillroy transcends conventional social scientific method, political theory, and its understanding of global governance to make the study of the philosophical underpinnings of international law accessible, grounded, and practical. This book provides analytic tools for understanding globalization, international legal thought, legal theory, and political philosophy, offering engaging insights on a complex field of study. It outlines the first of three arguments describing the evolution of international law as a manifestation of practical reason through an application of philosophical method to the source, locus, and scope of the concept of sovereignty. It moves from a dialectic balance favoring utility, to a balance dominated by legal right, and finally to a dialectic of duty to humanity and nature.

Public decisions on environmental risk have traditionally been weighed in terms of the principle of efficiency and its methodologies, such as cost-benefit and risk-benefit analysis. These original essays argue for moving beyond the market paradigm toward making policy that incorporates environmental values. Scholars representing a broad range of disciplines present a thorough analysis and methodological investigation of environmental risk and the potential for integrating environmental values into the policymaking process. They address the normative and theoretical roots of environmental risk, describe the distinct domain that exists for environmental values as opposed to economic values, and look at the conflicts between economic and environmental values within the applied context of the NIMBY (not in my back yard) phenomenon.

The book transcends conventional social scientific method, political theory and its understanding of global governance to make the study of the philosophical essence of the international legal system fully accessible.

Combining philosophy with practical politics, an expanding area of policy studies applies moral precepts, critical principles, and conventional values to collective decisions. This evolving new approach to policy analysis asserts that the same variety of ethical principles available to the individual are also available to make collective decisions in the public interest and should be used.

Although policy analysis has long been dominated by assumptions originally developed for the examination of markets, such as efficiency, these essays by leading scholars - the best work done in the field over the past three decades - explore alternatives to the "market paradigm" and show how moral discrimination and choice can extend beyond the individual to encompass public decisions.

Chapters by John Martin Gillroy and Maurice Wade review the political philosophies of Immanuel Kant and David Hume as backgrounds for the development of modern concepts of public policy choice. They present this anthology as a first step in codifying options, arguments, and methods within this important developing area of policy studies.