The Law of State Succession: Principles and Practice

Arman Sarvarian’s The Law of State Succession provides a comprehensive, practical, and empirical overview of the topic, establishing State succession as a distinct field with a cohesive set of rules.

From the secession of the United States of America in 1784 to that of South Sudan in 2011, the book digests and analyses State practice spanning more than two centuries. It is based on research into a wide and diverse range of case studies, including archival and previously unpublished data. It reconstructs the intellectual foundation of the field to offer a vision for its progressive development that is rooted in an interpretation of State practice that transcends the politics of the codification projects in the decolonization and desovietization eras. The book examines international law on State succession with respect to territorial rights and obligations, State property (including archives) and debt, treaties, international claims and responsibility, and nationality and private property (including concessions and investments). Its central focus is identifying the general rules of international law to guide the States concerned in the negotiation of succession agreements, interpret ambiguous or incomplete provisions, and regulate a succession in default of specific agreement.

A highly relevant work, The Law of State Succession offers governments, judges, and legal practitioners and scholars an authoritative account of the current law. It enables negotiators to identify the legal options in succession issues and assists adjudicators in interpreting provisions of succession agreements and regulating questions omitted from such agreements.

Arman Sarvarian, Reader in Public International Law, University of Surrey

Dr Arman Sarvarian is Reader in Public International Law of the University of Surrey and a barrister of England and Wales. A generalist in public international law, he has written on a wide variety of subjects in the field. He regularly serves as counsel and legal adviser to States and other clients in proceedings before international courts and tribunals, multilateral treaty negotiations in the United Nations and other international organisations as well as a judge ad hoc at the ECtHR.