Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law

1.      MPEPIL: General Purpose

Under the auspices of Professor Dr. Dr. h.c. Rüdiger Wolfrum, the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law in Heidelberg is currently preparing the Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law (MPEPIL).

Upon its completion, MPEPIL will a reference work unique in kind and scope. It aims to cover public international law in its entirety, comprising the following subject areas:

• Air law and law of outer space
• Diplomacy and consular relations
• Foreign relations
• History of international law
• Human rights
• Individuals and non-State actors
• Immunities
• International co-operation
• International courts and tribunals
• International criminal law
• International economic law and relations
• International environmental law
• International jurisprudence: Specific cases and decisions
• International law: Overview articles
• International organizations: General aspects
• International procedural law
• International responsibility
• Law of the sea
• Procedural law in international organizations
• Regional organizations, institutions and developments
• Settlement of disputes
• Sources, foundations and principles of international law
• Specific armed conflicts
• Specific geographic issues
• Specific treaties and instruments
• Statehood, jurisdiction of States, organs of States
• Subjects of international law
• Territory
• Theories of international law
• Universal international organizations and institutions
• Use of force, war, peace and neutrality.

2.      Background

MPEPIL is funded by the Max Planck Society. It is associated with the renowned Encyclopedia of Public International Law (EPIL) that was published between 1992 and 2001 under the auspices of Professor Dr. Rudolf Bernhardt. Nevertheless, MPEPIL constitutes a new work rather than a second edition of EPIL. Radical changes and developments in public international law over the last two decades have made it necessary to re-write nearly every article from scratch (only eight articles were taken verbatim from the Bernhardt edition) and include a large number of new topics.

3.      Quality Control

MPEPIL articles are hybrids in character insofar as they combine elements of a reference work with an individualized scholarly approach. While they cover their topic in a comprehensive yet concise manner, authors are also asked to add a personal assessment, delineating their own scholarly view of the matter.

Quality control lies with the General Editor and the Advisory Board. The latter includes Armin von Bogdandy, Edith Brown Weiss, Jean-Pierre Cot, Yoram Dinstein, Thomas M. Franck (deceased in 2009), Jochen Abr. Frowein, Meinhard Hilf, Rahmatullah Khan, Martti Koskenniemi, Thomas Läufer, Thomas A. Mensah, Hanspeter Neuhold, Francisco Orrego Vicuña, W. Michael Reisman, Bruno Simma, Daniel Thürer, Christian Tomuschat, Tullio Treves and Sir Michael Wood.

The Board has convened at regular intervals since 2005. Coming from different areas of public international law the members of the Board ensure that the various fields of PIL are given adequate weight within the Encyclopedia. Every article is peer reviewed by the General Editor and two or more members of the Advisory Board. More than 70% of all articles are sent back to the authors for revision. Throughout this process, the Advisory Board is in constant close contact with the contributors. This synergetic procedure has led to many fruitful discussions that have considerably enriched the Encyclopedia.

After they have been accepted for publication, MPEPIL articles are edited by a team of qualified young scholars and law students of the Max Planck Institute that is currently co-ordinated by Managing Editors Daniel Heilmann and Frauke Lachenmann. The team relies on the Institute’s extensive archives and library, verifying sources and collecting additional reference material. Since 2008 one half of Professor Wolfrum’s staff members have been part of the team. Throughout 2008 and 2009 up to 40 members of the Institute were involved in the project.

4.      Authors

Highly qualified academics and practitioners from all parts of the world and legal traditions were asked to contribute to MPEPIL. At present MPEPIL has 833 authors from 79 countries; 33% of them are from non-European countries.

A number of renowned legal experts is engaged in the MPEPIL project, among them Georges Abi-Saab, Mohamed Bennouna, Thomas Bürgenthal, James Crawford, Pierre-Marie Dupuy, Christopher Greenwood, Benedict Kingsbury, Abdul Koroma, Ruth Lapidoth, Hisashi Owada, Alain Pellet, Shabtai Rosenne, William A. Schabas, Bernardo Sepúlveda, Bruno Simma, Anne-Marie Slaughter, Peter Tomka, Sir Arthur Watts, Joseph Weiler, Vladlen Vereshchetin. While their expertise is fundamental to the whole work, the General Editor and Board also aim to involve a new generation of young legal scholars offering fresh insights and approaches. 

5.      Topicality

Covering the fluctuating and ever-increasing substance of public international law is a major challenge. As MPEPIL is committed to topicality it is essential to constantly update the content of the Encyclopedia and take into account recent developments. While the Encyclopedia is meant to cover the field of public international law as completely as possible, it must also capture the latest developments in international law. Most recently, keywords have been added on the topics of Abkhazia and South-Ossetia, as well as the latest ICJ decisions (e.g. Costa Rica v Nicaragua, July 2009).

MPEPIL authors are obliged to update their contributions for a three year period following publication; in this, they are supported by the editorial staff that keep track of the most recent legal developments. After an article has been updated it is again peer reviewed before being published. 

6.      Innovation

As a state-of-the-art online medium MPEPIL offers a range of research options. Cross-references between the entries enable fast, easy access to related subjects. MPEPIL users may choose to study an individual topic in-depth or explore a variety of subject areas simultaneously. One particularly useful research tool available to MPEPIL readers is the Oxford Law Citator: Each decision, instrument (treaty, piece of legislation, set of rules), or commentary (whether a journal article, chapter of a book or other commentary) published on an OUP online legal service, is loaded to that service at the same time as its own unique Citator record. This page is where users can find citation details and other useful information about the published document. From this page, users can either access the report of the decision if it is available on an OUP online service to which they subscribe or continue their research by following links to other records in the Citator which map relationships between decisions, instruments and commentary.

7.      Reviews

Since going live in August 2008 MPEPIL has been received very well. Living up to the success of the Bernhardt edition it is set to become a key reference work in the area of PIL. Not only universities but a number of international organizations and institutions (among them the United Nations, ILO, IAEA, ICJ, ICC, ITLOS, ECtHR), government agencies and legal offices have subscribed to the Encyclopedia. At present there are institutional subscribers from 35 countries.

Reviews have been extremely positive, asserting that MPEPIL is closing a gap in legal research:

Seattle University Law Library: “Whether you need to understand an international legal concept or theory or have a specific question about the importance of a particular case or the context of an event, the [Max Planck] Encyclopedia of Public International Law online will prove to be an invaluable first stop for your international law research.”

American Reference Books Annual: “This monumental resource will be useful for scholarly researchers and practitioners in the area of public and international law. Academic libraries and corporate law libraries should consider adding it to the digital collections.”

Trends in Law Library Management: "The final component for public international law research is commentary. This component is the hardest to acquire electronically. Westlaw, LexisNexis, and HeinOnline offer databases of law review articles, but serious researchers will also demand treatises-classics of international law, and current monographs. The key building block here is the newly-available database, Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law, from Oxford University Press. No PIL collection could attain respectability without this work."

8.      Current Situation

The Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law will contain around 1,728 keywords, although current legal developments may make it necessary to include further entries. This increases the number of articles by more than 400 in comparison with the first edition.

In August 2008 the first 450 MPEPIL articles were published at www.mpepil.com. Since then new articles have been loaded onto the site every three months. By the end of January 2010 1,100 articles were available online.

Once the electronic publication is all but complete, a print version will be made available by Oxford University Press. This is now planned for the second half of 2011.

9.      Conclusion

The Max Planck Encyclopedia represents a unique restatement of public international law. Experts from the most diverse academic and regional backgrounds are contributing to this co-operative project, with the Institute acting as a point of intersection between the MPI staff and Advisory Board on the one hand and authors from around the world on the other hand. This dialogue, which spans legal cultures and continents, adds to the value of this project and at the same time contributes to the Institute’s international network of contacts.

For further information on the sales and subscription information contact:
Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP corporatesales.uk@oup.com.