Transboundary Damage in International Law

Xue Hanqin is Director-General of the Law and Treaty Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, China. She was one of the first women to be elected (in 2001) to the International Law Commission. She has broad experience in both bilateral and multilateral negotiations of international treaties on various subjects of public international law. She is also a professor of law at the Beijing University School of Law and the College of Foreign Diplomacy of China, and Vice-President of the Chinese Society of International Law.

• Foreword; Preface and acknowledgements; List of treaties; List of cases; List of abbreviations; 1. Introduction; Part I. Accidental damage: 2. Liability for accidental damage; 3. Substantive rules and principles: issues and problems; Part II. Non-Accidental Damage: 4. Liability for non-accidental damage; 5. The doctrine of due diligence and standards of conduct; Part III. Damage to the Global Commons: 6. Liability for damage to the global commons; 7. Legal issues relating to damage to the global commons; Part VI. Underlying Principles: 8. The nature and basis of international liability; 9. Conclusions; Bibliography; Index.

'Dr. Xue Hanqin has produced a well-researched and balanced study … Dr. Xue's book is rich. She deploys an impressive array of materials to describe, summarize, and analyze the current regimes on transboundary damage in international law. It contains a wealth of information that is exceedingly useful to a reader having a serious interest in this particular area. She interweaves the normal 'environmental law' issues and State responsibility/liability issues in a way that is clear, succinct and fitting. One normally would be content with success in either area, but Dr. Xue is clearly successful in both. I found Dr. Xue's book to be rigorous, thought-provoking and balanced. It is a substantial contribution by a Chinese scholar, in the heavy-duty tradition, to the literature on transboundary damage in international law. I have found it to be immensely useful in my own work and I recommend it to the readers.' Sienho Yee, Chinese Journal of International Law