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TREATISES AND STUDY AIDS FOR AMERICAN STUDENTS OF INTERNATIONAL LAW International Law Frameworks. By David J. Bederman. New York: Foundation Press, 2001. Pp. xi, 284. Index. $48, paper.
Public International Law in a Nutshell. 3d ed. By Thomas Buergenthal & Scan D. Murphy. St Paul, MN: West Publishing, 2002. Pp. xxxv, 388. Index. $27.50, paper.
An Introduction to International Law. 4th ed. By Mark W. Janis. New York: Aspen Publishers, 2003. Pp. xix, 384. Index. $49, paper.
Principles of Public International Law. 6th ed. By Ian Brownlie. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. Pp. xlii, 742. Index. $85, paper.
International Law. 5th ed. By Malcolm N. Shaw.. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Pp. cxlv, 1288. Index. $150, cloth; $60, paper.
"Are there any study aids you'd recommend for this course?" Most American law professors are used to hearing that question from their students, including students of international law. In fact, American law professors probably hear this question more often than their counterparts elsewhere, for there are peculiarities of American law teaching that tend to leave the student with unanswered questions.
One such peculiarity is the American casebook style. In the American tradition of legal education, the principal textbook for a course is not a textbook at all, but a casebook-a collection of edited judicial opinions and other primary source materials accompanied by questions propounded by the casebook editor. Traditionally, the American law casebook leaves these questions unanswered, propelling students to the law library or to the professor in order to find answers. American casebooks on international law generally follow this traditional format.1 To be sure, international law casebooks do rely more heavily on secondary sources-excerpts from Henkin, Schachter, or Brierly-than do their domestic law counterparts. But they still are fond of asking unanswered questions. For example, after presenting the case of Certain Norwegian Loans, Carter, Trimble, and Bradley ask, without answering: "If the facts in the case were reversed so that Norway sued France in the ICJ over French bonds, would France have any grounds for objecting to the jurisdiction of the Court?"2
Another peculiarity of American law teaching is the professor's fondness for the Socratic method. This teaching style mirrors that of the casebook: the professor calls on a student to recite the facts of...