Alexander Downer, when asked on the ABC in February 2003 about the legality of military measures against Iraq, was keen to emphasise Australia’s fidelity to international law: ‘We’ve reached a point where you either take international law seriously and ensure that Iraq does comply with international law or else you abandon the whole concept, at least in this case, of trying to enforce international law.’ But only a month after these comments, the federal government demonstrated its commitment to ‘enforcing’ international law by participating in an invasion characterised as illegal by the preponderance of states and international lawyers.

No Country Is an Island shows how international law has been distorted or instrumentally used in recent high-profile debates about Australia’s place in the world. Jointly authored by Hilary Charlesworth, Madelaine Chiam, Devika Hovell, and George Williams, all specialists in either public or international law at the Australian National University and the University of New South Wales, it is a clear account of international law in Australia for a general audience, and is in some respects a companion volume to a recent academic collection edited by the authors (The Fluid State, reviewed in ABR in May 2006).