Part one: Khawar Qureshi QC charts the growth of public international law before the English courts
'State behaviour is likely to be placed under the PIL microscope to an increasingly greater extent'
In 2001 I wrote an article about the likely increase in cases before the English courts where parties sought to invoke public international law (PIL), (see 151 NLJ 787, p 787). I based my observation upon the proliferation of treaties between states, increasing diversity of economic activity being engaged in by states and state entities, together with more frequent binding resolutions being promulgated by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) from the mid-1990s onwards which would need to be given effect to under domestic law and considered by the courts.
However, despite the increase in awareness and use of PIL, PIL has also been the object of strong criticism, as being more often abused by states (which are its essential subjects) as opposed to being adhered to. Such criticism is largely misplaced. A vast amount of trouble-free interaction takes place at the inter-state level based upon PIL. Many of us (in the
