The Lotus Principle Explained in Contemporary International Law

The Lotus Principle remains one of the most frequently cited—and most frequently misunderstood—concepts in public international law. Originating in the 1927 judgment of the Permanent Court of International Justice in the SS Lotus case, the Principle has long been invoked as shorthand for the idea that states are free to act unless an explicit rule of international law prohibits their conduct. This formulation has exercised enduring influence over debates on jurisdiction, sovereignty, and the structure of the international legal order. Yet its continued relevance is far from settled. Contemporary international law, marked by dense normative regimes and expanded subjects, no longer resembles the voluntarist environment in which the Lotus judgment was delivered.

The enduring importance of the Lotus Principle lies not in its capacity to provide ready-made answers, but in its role as a conceptual fault line between competing visions of international law. On one side stands a positivist and state-centric understanding, in which legal obligations arise exclusively through consent and restrictions on sovereignty must be demonstrated with precision. On the other side stands a more systemic and value-oriented conception, attentive to community interests, collective obligations, and evolving normative expectations. The tension between these approaches explains why the Lotus Principle continues to surface in judicial reasoning, academic writing, and doctrinal disputes nearly a century after its articulation.

The Principle also matters because it shaped the methodological posture of international courts toward legal gaps. In the SS Lotus judgment, the Court rejected the notion that silence in international law implied prohibition. Instead, absence of a prohibitive rule was treated as legally significant in itself. This reasoning positioned international law as fundamentally permissive in character, contrasting sharply with domestic legal systems in which authority is typically constrained unless affirmatively granted. The implications of this stance extend beyond the facts of maritime collisions and criminal jurisdiction. They touch on how international law conceives power, freedom, and responsibility among states.

Modern jurisprudence has complicated this picture. The growth of treaty regimes, customary norms, and peremptory rules has narrowed the space in which residual freedom can plausibly operate. At the same time, international courts have become increasingly cautious about relying on broad presumptions of permissibility, preferring contextual interpretation and systemic coherence. The Lotus Principle thus functions today less as a governing rule and more as a point of reference against which contemporary legal reasoning defines itself.

Understanding why the Lotus Principle still matters requires careful separation of myth from doctrine. It demands attention to what the Permanent Court actually decided, how later courts have treated its reasoning, and how structural changes in international law have altered the conditions under which the Principle can operate. This article approaches the Lotus Principle not as an immutable axiom, but as a historically situated judicial construct whose meaning and authority have evolved alongside the international legal system itself.

The SS Lotus Case (1927): Facts, Holding, and Context

The SS Lotus case arose from a maritime collision that occurred on 2 August 1926 on the high seas between the French steamship Lotus and the Turkish vessel Boz-Kourt. The collision resulted in the sinking of the Boz-Kourt and the deaths of eight Turkish nationals on board. Following the incident, the Lotus proceeded to Constantinople, where Turkish authorities initiated criminal proceedings against Lieutenant Demons, the French officer on watch at the time of the collision. France protested Turkey’s assertion of jurisdiction, arguing that international law reserved criminal jurisdiction exclusively to the flag state of the vessel on the high seas.

The dispute was submitted by special agreement to the Permanent Court of International Justice (PCIJ), which was asked to determine whether Turkey had acted in breach of international law by exercising criminal jurisdiction over a foreign national for acts committed outside its territory. The legal framing of the dispute was decisive. France maintained that Turkey was required to demonstrate a positive legal basis authorizing its exercise of jurisdiction. Turkey, by contrast, argued that international law imposed no such restriction and that jurisdiction was permissible in the absence of a prohibitive rule.

This divergence in legal reasoning forced the Court to confront a foundational question about the structure of international law itself. The PCIJ reformulated the dispute as one concerning the nature of legal constraints on state action. In its reasoning, the Court emphasized that international law governs relations among independent states and that legal obligations arise from their consent, expressed through treaties or accepted practice. Against this background, the Court famously stated that restrictions upon the independence of states cannot be presumed. This statement later came to be known as the Lotus Principle.

By a narrow margin, with the President casting the decisive vote in a six-to-six split, the Court held that Turkey had not violated international law. It found no rule prohibiting Turkey from exercising criminal jurisdiction in the circumstances and rejected the argument that such jurisdiction was limited to the flag state as a matter of general international law. The Court concluded that both France and Turkey possessed concurrent jurisdiction over the incident, a position that was controversial even at the time and later rejected by subsequent treaty developments in the law of the sea.

The holding of the case cannot be understood without attention to its historical and legal context. The judgment was delivered during the interwar period, a time when international law was still deeply shaped by classical notions of sovereignty and voluntarism. Multilateral treaty regimes were comparatively sparse, and customary international law was often articulated in general and indeterminate terms. In this environment, the Court’s insistence on demonstrable legal restraints reflected a broader skepticism toward implied limitations on state authority.

Equally significant is what the Court did not decide. The SS Lotus judgment did not proclaim an unlimited freedom of states to act without regard to international law. Rather, it rejected the specific claim that Turkey bore the burden of identifying a permissive rule authorizing its conduct. The Court’s reasoning focused on the absence of prohibition, not on the existence of an affirmative entitlement. This distinction, subtle in form, proved decisive in shaping later interpretations of the Lotus Principle.

The strong dissenting opinions illustrate how contentious the Court’s approach was even among its own judges. Several dissenters criticized the majority for adopting an excessively permissive view of international law and for reducing legal reasoning to a binary choice between express prohibition and unrestricted freedom. These judges argued that international law could impose constraints through general principles and systemic considerations, even in the absence of explicit rules. Their concerns foreshadowed later critiques of the Lotus Principle as overly formalistic and detached from the social realities of the international community.

The SS Lotus case also triggered a legislative response. Subsequent international conventions governing maritime collisions explicitly limited criminal jurisdiction to the flag state or the state of nationality of the accused. This development is often cited as evidence that the Court’s solution was normatively unsatisfactory, prompting states to clarify the law through treaty-making. The episode illustrates the dynamic relationship between judicial reasoning and normative development in international law.

The SS Lotus case thus occupies a foundational place in international legal doctrine. It crystallized a particular understanding of sovereignty, consent, and legal restraint that would shape scholarly and judicial debates for decades. At the same time, the controversy surrounding the judgment underscores that the Lotus Principle was never a neutral restatement of settled law. It was a product of its time, reflective of a legal order still grappling with the balance between state freedom and collective regulation.

Defining the Lotus Principle: Meaning, Scope, and Limits

The Lotus Principle is commonly summarized by the assertion that states may act freely unless their conduct is expressly prohibited by international law. While this formulation captures the intuitive appeal of the Principle, it also risks oversimplification. A precise definition requires closer attention to the reasoning of the SS Lotus judgment and to the conceptual assumptions embedded in the Court’s language.

At its core, the Lotus Principle expresses a presumption concerning the nature of legal obligation in the international legal order. The Permanent Court did not claim that states possess unlimited freedom, nor did it deny the binding force of international law. Instead, it articulated a methodological stance: legal constraints on state action must be demonstrated through identifiable legal rules derived from consent, either in the form of treaty obligations or established customary practice. In the absence of such rules, the Court refused to infer restrictions based on analogy, policy considerations, or moral reasoning.

This presumption reflects a particular understanding of sovereignty. Under the Lotus Principle, sovereignty is conceived as the default condition of state interaction, with legal obligation operating as an exception rather than the rule. International law, in this view, functions as a system of agreed limitations layered upon an underlying freedom of action. The Principle, therefore, does not create rights; it allocates the burden of proof. The party alleging illegality must show that a specific rule constrains the conduct in question.

The scope of the Lotus Principle is narrower than its reputation suggests. The Court formulated the Principle in response to a concrete jurisdictional dispute, not as a general theory of international law. Its reasoning addressed the question of criminal jurisdiction over acts occurring on the high seas and did not purport to govern all forms of state conduct. Nonetheless, the general language employed by the Court encouraged later readers to extract a broader doctrinal rule, often detached from the factual and legal context in which it arose.

An important limitation of the Lotus Principle concerns its relationship with legal gaps. The judgment rejected the idea that silence in international law necessarily implies prohibition. At the same time, it did not endorse the existence of a legal vacuum devoid of normative guidance. The Court assumed that international law, even if incomplete, provides a framework within which states operate. The Principle, therefore, operates only where no relevant rule can be identified after careful legal analysis. It does not apply where obligations arise from general principles, peremptory norms, or systemic interpretations of the legal order.

The Principle also rests on a binary conception of legality. Conduct is either prohibited or permitted, with little room for intermediate categories. This binary structure has attracted sustained criticism, particularly as international law has expanded to regulate complex areas such as human rights, environmental protection, and collective security. In these fields, legal assessment often involves proportionality, due diligence, and balancing of interests rather than a simple search for prohibitive rules. The Lotus framework struggles to accommodate such normative complexity.

Another significant limit lies in the evolving subject matter of international law. The SS Lotus judgment assumed a legal system composed exclusively of sovereign states. Contemporary international law, by contrast, recognizes the relevance of non-state actors, international organizations, and individuals. The extension of legal obligations beyond states challenges the voluntarist assumptions underlying the Lotus Principle and weakens its explanatory power in modern contexts.

Defining the Lotus Principle, therefore, requires resisting reductive interpretations. It is neither a declaration of absolute sovereignty nor a denial of international legal authority. It is a methodological presumption rooted in a specific historical understanding of international law. Its meaning is inseparable from its limits, and its continued invocation demands careful scrutiny of the legal environment in which it is applied.

Positivism, Voluntarism, and State-Centrism in the Lotus Principle

The Lotus Principle is inseparable from the intellectual climate in which it was formulated. Its reasoning reflects a convergence of legal positivism, voluntarism, and a strongly state-centric conception of international law. These elements shaped not only the outcome of the SS Lotus case but also the broader understanding of how international legal obligations are created, identified, and applied.

Legal positivism provided the structural foundation of the Court’s reasoning. Under this approach, law is understood as a system of rules derived from identifiable sources, primarily treaties and customary practices accepted as law. Normative considerations external to these sources, such as moral reasoning or perceived fairness, are treated as legally irrelevant unless they can be traced back to state consent. The Lotus Principle embodies this perspective by insisting that restrictions on state action must be grounded in demonstrable legal rules. Absent such rules, the Court declined to infer obligations or prohibitions.

Closely linked to positivism is the voluntarist conception of international law. Voluntarism holds that states are bound only by norms to which they have consented, either expressly or tacitly. In the SS Lotus judgment, this assumption was evident in the Court’s emphasis on the free will of states as the source of international legal obligations. The Principle thus operates on the premise that sovereignty precedes law, and that legal constraints are the product of deliberate self-limitation rather than inherent features of the international system.

State-centrism further reinforced this framework. The international legal order envisaged by the Permanent Court was composed exclusively of sovereign states interacting on a horizontal plane. Rights, duties, and jurisdiction were conceptualized as attributes of statehood, and legal analysis focused on inter-state relations rather than on broader community interests. The Lotus Principle presupposes this architecture by framing legality in terms of state independence and by excluding considerations that do not fit neatly within bilateral or reciprocal legal relationships.

These theoretical commitments shaped the Court’s approach to jurisdiction. By rejecting the requirement that Turkey demonstrate a permissive rule authorizing its conduct, the Court affirmed a vision of international law in which sovereignty functions as the default condition. Jurisdiction was treated as an expression of state authority, constrained only by explicit legal limits. This approach aligned with the prevailing understanding of international law in the interwar period, when comprehensive regulatory regimes were rare and the autonomy of states remained the dominant organizing principle.

At the same time, the positivist and voluntarist underpinnings of the Lotus Principle exposed it to immediate criticism. Several dissenting judges and subsequent scholars argued that the Court’s reasoning conflated the absence of express prohibition with legal permissibility. They contended that international law could impose obligations through general principles, systemic coherence, or the shared interests of the international community, even where no specific rule could be identified. From this perspective, the Lotus Principle appeared to reduce international law to a minimal framework incapable of addressing complex normative questions.

The state-centric orientation of the Principle has become increasingly problematic in light of post-1945 developments. The expansion of international human rights law, the emergence of obligations erga omnes, and the recognition of peremptory norms have all challenged the idea that consent alone determines legal obligation. In these areas, international law operates as a constraint on sovereignty rather than as a product of it. The Lotus Principle, grounded in a voluntarist logic, struggles to accommodate such developments without substantial reinterpretation.

The conceptual pillars of the Principle can be summarized as follows:

• Positivism: law derives from identifiable sources accepted by states.

• Voluntarism: legal obligation arises from state consent.

• State-centrism: states are the exclusive subjects and primary beneficiaries of international law.

Together, these elements explain both the historical influence and the contemporary fragility of the Lotus Principle. They reveal a legal philosophy attuned to a world of formally equal but largely autonomous states, yet increasingly misaligned with a legal order characterized by dense regulation, shared values, and institutionalized cooperation.

The Lotus Principle in ICJ Jurisprudence After 1945

The establishment of the International Court of Justice marked a turning point in the development of international adjudication. Although the Court inherited much of the jurisprudential legacy of the Permanent Court, its post-1945 case law reveals a markedly more cautious attitude toward the reasoning associated with the Lotus Principle. Rather than reaffirming the Principle as a general presumption of permissibility, the ICJ has treated it as context-specific and, in several instances, implicitly limited its relevance.

One of the earliest signals of this shift appears in the Corfu Channel case. While the dispute concerned issues of territorial sovereignty and state responsibility, the Court did not approach the matter through a presumption of unrestricted state freedom. Instead, it emphasized duties of vigilance, respect for territorial sovereignty, and the protection of fundamental interests of other states. The Court’s reasoning suggested that international law could impose positive obligations even in the absence of explicit treaty provisions, thereby departing from the restrictive logic of the Lotus Principle.

This more restrained posture became clearer in subsequent advisory opinions and contentious cases. In the Nuclear Weapons Advisory Opinion, the Court confronted a legal environment characterized by normative density and competing principles. Rather than relying on the absence of a comprehensive prohibition as a basis for permissibility, the Court examined the interaction between humanitarian law, the principles of necessity and proportionality, and the fundamental rules governing the use of force. The resulting reasoning reflected an understanding of international law as a system of interrelated norms, not a catalogue of isolated prohibitions. The Court’s reluctance to derive legal conclusions solely from silence in the law stands in contrast to the permissive logic traditionally associated with the Lotus Principle.

A similar pattern emerges in cases involving extraterritorial jurisdiction and enforcement powers. In the Arrest Warrant case, the Court did not frame its analysis around a general freedom to exercise jurisdiction in the absence of prohibition. Instead, it examined established rules on immunities, the functional requirements of international relations, and the balance between competing legal interests. The emphasis on systemic coherence and stability suggests a move away from the idea that state action is presumptively lawful unless expressly forbidden.

Across its jurisprudence, the ICJ has rarely cited the Lotus Principle explicitly. This silence is doctrinally significant. Given the Court’s frequent engagement with questions of jurisdiction, sovereignty, and legal competence, the absence of reliance on the Principle indicates a deliberate distancing rather than mere oversight. When the Court has addressed issues that could have invited a Lotus-style analysis, it has generally preferred interpretive methods grounded in context, object and purpose, and the broader structure of international law.

The post-1945 jurisprudence also reflects a changing understanding of the sources and functions of international law. The Court has increasingly recognized obligations that arise from the collective interests of the international community, including obligations erga omnes and peremptory norms. These developments are difficult to reconcile with a strict voluntarist model in which legal obligation depends exclusively on consent. As a result, the methodological presumption underlying the Lotus Principle has lost much of its explanatory power.

This evolution does not amount to a formal repudiation of the Lotus Principle. The ICJ has never expressly overturned the reasoning of the SS Lotus case. Instead, it has effectively marginalized the Principle by adopting a more nuanced and integrated approach to legal interpretation. The focus has shifted from identifying isolated prohibitions to assessing the legal framework as a whole, including its underlying values and systemic implications.

The trajectory of ICJ jurisprudence after 1945 thus reveals a gradual transformation in the role of the Lotus Principle. Once treated as a foundational expression of state freedom, it has become a historical reference point whose assumptions are increasingly at odds with the structure of contemporary international law. The Court’s practice suggests that permissibility can no longer be inferred solely from silence and that legal reasoning must account for the complex normative environment in which states operate.

The Kosovo Advisory Opinion and the Reconfiguration of the Lotus Principle

The Advisory Opinion on the declaration of independence of Kosovo represents one of the most consequential moments in the modern trajectory of the Lotus Principle. Although the Court did not explicitly invoke the Principle by name, its reasoning reflected a modified application of the logic first articulated in the SS Lotus case. This reconfiguration is particularly significant because it occurred in a legal context shaped by human rights norms, self-determination, and the diminished exclusivity of state-centric reasoning.

The question posed to the Court asked whether the unilateral declaration of independence of Kosovo was in accordance with international law. Rather than undertaking a comprehensive assessment of the legality of secession, the Court reformulated the inquiry and examined whether international law prohibited the declaration. This shift in framing proved decisive. By focusing on the absence of a prohibitive rule, the Court employed a permissive logic reminiscent of the Lotus Principle, yet adapted to a markedly different legal and factual environment.

The most striking aspect of this reasoning lies in the identity of the actor whose conduct was assessed. In the SS Lotus case, the Principle was applied to the conduct of sovereign states operating within a horizontal legal order. In the Kosovo Advisory Opinion, the same logic benefited a non-state entity. The Court emphasized that international law contains no general prohibition on declarations of independence and concluded that the act in question did not violate international law. This move effectively extended Lotus-style reasoning beyond its original state-centric foundation.

This extension has profound doctrinal implications. The classical Lotus Principle rested on the assumption that sovereignty entails residual freedom. Applying similar reasoning to a non-state actor disrupts that assumption and signals an evolution in the structure of international law. The Court’s approach suggests that permissibility may arise not only from sovereignty but also from the absence of applicable norms restricting certain forms of political expression. In this sense, the Kosovo Advisory Opinion reflects a post-state-centric adaptation of Lotus logic.

The Court’s reasoning also reveals an effort to navigate competing normative pressures. On one hand, the Court avoided endorsing a right of secession or a generalized entitlement to independence. On the other hand, it refrained from treating the declaration as legally suspect merely because it challenged an existing territorial arrangement. By relying on the absence of prohibition, the Court limited its engagement with highly contested political and moral questions, while still producing a legally defensible conclusion.

This approach has attracted significant criticism. Critics argue that the Court’s reliance on a permissive framework reduced international law to a minimalist inquiry, bypassing relevant considerations such as territorial integrity, Security Council practice, and the broader legal framework governing self-determination. Others contend that the Court missed an opportunity to clarify the legal consequences of unilateral declarations in a system increasingly concerned with stability and collective interests.

At the same time, the Kosovo Advisory Opinion illustrates the adaptive capacity of the Lotus Principle. The Principle no longer operates as a blunt affirmation of state freedom. Instead, it functions as a judicial technique for resolving questions in areas marked by normative ambiguity. By framing legality in negative terms, the Court preserved institutional legitimacy and avoided pronouncing on issues that lack sufficient consensus within the international community.

The reconfiguration of the Lotus Principle in the Kosovo context thus reflects both continuity and transformation. The underlying logic of permissibility in the absence of prohibition remains recognizable, yet it has been detached from its original philosophical foundations. Sovereignty no longer serves as the sole anchor of legal freedom, and the binary structure of the Principle is deployed with greater caution. The Kosovo Advisory Opinion demonstrates that the Lotus Principle, while diminished in scope, continues to influence international legal reasoning in subtle and evolving ways.

Is the Lotus Principle Still Valid Today? Normative and Structural Critiques

The contemporary validity of the Lotus Principle is increasingly contested. While its historical importance is undisputed, its capacity to function as a guiding principle of modern international law is subject to sustained normative and structural criticism. These critiques reflect the transformation of the international legal system from a sparse, consent-based order into a dense normative framework characterized by shared values, collective interests, and institutionalized regulation.

One of the central critiques concerns the expansion of international legal obligations that do not depend on reciprocal consent. Obligations erga omnes, peremptory norms, and duties owed to the international community as a whole challenge the voluntarist assumption that legal constraints arise solely from state agreement. In areas such as the prohibition of genocide, torture, and aggressive war, legality is no longer assessed by reference to state freedom, but by reference to universally binding norms. The Lotus Principle, grounded in residual permissibility, offers little analytical guidance in such contexts.

A related critique targets the binary structure of the Principle. The notion that conduct is either prohibited or permitted fails to capture the complexity of contemporary international law, which increasingly relies on standards of conduct rather than categorical rules. Concepts such as due diligence, proportionality, necessity, and reasonableness require evaluative judgment rather than a simple search for prohibitive norms. In regulatory fields such as environmental protection and transboundary harm, legality depends on the manner in which conduct is carried out, not merely on its formal permissibility.

Structural developments in international law further weaken the explanatory power of the Lotus Principle. The proliferation of specialized treaty regimes has significantly reduced the scope of legal silence. Where international law once appeared fragmented and indeterminate, it now provides layered obligations governing trade, investment, human rights, armed conflict, and global commons. In this environment, the absence of an explicit prohibition rarely signifies legal freedom. More often, it reflects the presence of contextual rules that must be interpreted in light of their object and purpose.

The rise of non-state actors also exposes the limitations of the Principle. The classical Lotus framework presupposed a legal order populated exclusively by sovereign states. Contemporary international law, however, regulates the conduct of individuals, corporations, armed groups, and international organizations. Applying a presumption of permissibility to such actors risks undermining accountability and diluting normative protections. The extension of Lotus-style reasoning beyond states, as seen in certain judicial contexts, underscores the tension between the Principle and the pluralist structure of modern international law.

Normative critiques further question the ethical implications of relying on the Lotus Principle. By prioritizing freedom of action in the absence of prohibition, the Principle may incentivize strategic exploitation of legal uncertainty. This dynamic is particularly problematic in areas involving asymmetries of power or irreversible harm. In such cases, a permissive default risks privileging the interests of powerful actors at the expense of vulnerable populations and collective goods.

Despite these critiques, the Lotus Principle has not been rendered entirely irrelevant. Its enduring influence lies in its caution against inventing legal obligations without a basis in recognized sources of law. The Principle continues to serve as a reminder of the importance of legal certainty and methodological discipline in international adjudication. However, its role is now largely defensive rather than generative. It functions as a warning against overextension, not as a comprehensive account of legality.

Taken together, normative and structural critiques suggest that the Lotus Principle no longer operates as a general principle of international law. It survives as a historical artifact and a limited interpretive tool, applicable only in narrowly defined contexts. The evolution of international law has exposed the fragility of its underlying assumptions and highlighted the need for legal reasoning that reflects the complexity, density, and value-laden character of the contemporary international legal order.

Conclusion: The Lotus Principle as Historical Artifact, Not Legal Compass

The Lotus Principle occupies a singular position in the intellectual history of public international law. Born out of a specific jurisdictional dispute in the interwar period, it articulated a vision of the international legal order grounded in sovereignty, consent, and restraint in the face of legal uncertainty. Its enduring citation reflects not only its doctrinal clarity but also its symbolic function as a marker of classical international law’s foundational assumptions.

Yet the analysis developed throughout this article demonstrates that the Lotus Principle no longer operates as a reliable guide for contemporary legal reasoning. The international legal system in which the SS Lotus judgment was delivered has been fundamentally transformed. The expansion of treaty regimes, the emergence of community-oriented obligations, and the recognition of peremptory norms have collectively narrowed the space in which residual freedom can plausibly serve as a default rule. Legal silence today rarely signifies permissibility; more often, it invites contextual interpretation within a dense normative framework.

The jurisprudence of the International Court of Justice confirms this shift. While the Court has never formally repudiated the Lotus Principle, it has consistently avoided treating it as a general presumption of legality. Instead, the Court has favored approaches that emphasize systemic coherence, the object and purpose of legal norms, and the protection of collective interests. Even in cases where Lotus-style reasoning appears to resurface, such as the Kosovo Advisory Opinion, it does so in a transformed and constrained manner, detached from its original philosophical foundations.

Understanding the Lotus Principle as a historical artifact allows for a more accurate appreciation of its contemporary relevance. It remains valuable as a reminder of the dangers of judicial overreach and the importance of grounding legal obligations in recognized sources of law. At the same time, treating it as a legal compass risks mischaracterizing the nature of modern international law and oversimplifying complex normative landscapes. The Principle’s binary logic and voluntarist premises are ill-suited to a legal order increasingly defined by shared values, regulatory density, and institutionalized cooperation.

The continued invocation of the Lotus Principle should therefore be approached with caution. Its authority lies in its historical context, not in its capacity to resolve present-day legal challenges. In this sense, the Principle serves best as an object of critical reflection rather than as a governing rule. Recognizing its limits is essential for advancing a conception of international law that is both methodologically sound and responsive to the realities of a pluralist and interconnected world.

References

Cases and Advisory Opinions

• Permanent Court of International Justice, The Case of the S.S. “Lotus” (France v. Turkey), Judgment, Series A No. 10 (1927).

• International Court of Justice, Corfu Channel Case (United Kingdom v. Albania), Merits, Judgment (1949).

• International Court of Justice, Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons, Advisory Opinion (1996).

• International Court of Justice, Arrest Warrant of 11 April 2000 (Democratic Republic of the Congo v. Belgium), Judgment (2002).

• International Court of Justice, Accordance with International Law of the Unilateral Declaration of Independence in Respect of Kosovo, Advisory Opinion (2010).

Books and Monographs

• Brownlie, Ian. Principles of Public International Law. Oxford University Press.

• Cheng, Bin. General Principles of Law as Applied by International Courts and Tribunals. Cambridge University Press.

• Kohen, Marcelo G. Secession: International Law Perspectives. Cambridge University Press.

• Oppenheim, Lassa (ed. Hersch Lauterpacht). International Law. Longmans.

• Spiermann, Ole. International Legal Argument in the Permanent Court of International Justice. Cambridge University Press.

Journal Articles and Academic Works

• Brierly, J. L. “The ‘Lotus’ Case.” Law Quarterly Review.

• Handeyside, Hugh. “The Lotus Principle in ICJ Jurisprudence: Was the Ship Ever Afloat?” Michigan Journal of International Law.

• Henkin, Louis. “International Law: Politics, Values and Functions.” Recueil des Cours.

• Pellet, Alain. “The Normative Dilemma: Will and Consent in International Law-Making.” Australian Year Book of International Law.

• Simma, Bruno, and Andreas L. Paulus. “The Responsibility of Individuals for Human Rights Abuses in Internal Conflicts.” American Journal of International Law.

Academic Thesis

• O’Neill, Teresa. Rethinking the Lotus Principle: New Perspectives on the Kosovo Advisory Opinion. Master’s Thesis, Lund University.