International Construction Law

International law is a body of legally binding norms that regulate relations between the subjects of the international legal system and structure the functioning of the international legal order. In contemporary legal doctrine, as well as in Article 38 of the Statute of the International Court of Justice, treaties, international custom and general principles of law are traditionally recognized as sources of international law, while judicial decisions and the teachings of the most highly qualified publicists are regarded as subsidiary means for the determination of rules of law. In both doctrine and practice, this catalogue is understood not as an exhaustive list of formal sources, but as a functional framework for identifying and justifying the existence of international legal norms. International treaties include both bilateral and multilateral agreements. This category may also encompass model contracts, guidelines, instruments of international organizations and standard legal constructions developed with a view to harmonizing regulation, insofar as they are subsequently incorporated into legally binding agreements or consistently relied upon in State practice and the practice of international organizations. International custom is formed on the basis of a general and consistent practice of States accepted as law (opinio juris sive necessitatis). General principles of law recognized by civilized nations serve as a supplementary source of international regulation, especially where other forms of norm-creation are absent or contested. Historically, international law traces its origins to custom generated in early human communities, where social relations were governed by unwritten rules emerging from practice and supported by social authority. Over time this evolution crystallized into a stable system of inter-State norms possessing legally binding force and enjoying international recognition, which today operates alongside and in interaction with domestic legal orders and the regimes of international organizations. In the absence of a centralized international law-making or enforcement authority, States have resorted to creating mechanisms of their own for conflict prevention and the preservation of stability. After the First World War, the major Powers established the League of Nations with a view to preventing local conflicts from escalating into global wars through collective commitments to refrain from aggression. In 1945 the Charter of the United Nations was adopted; it enshrined the principle of the maintenance of international peace and security and imposed on Member States the obligation to refrain from the threat or use of force (Article 2 (4) of the UN Charter), thereby laying the constitutional foundation of the contemporary collective security system. States with limited military resources created regional defence alliances to secure mutual protection against pressure from more powerful actors. The 1949 North Atlantic Treaty established NATO, within which members undertake to assist one another in the event of an armed attack (Article 5 of the Treaty), while the 1955 Warsaw Treaty performed a similar function within the socialist bloc. In the economic sphere, States conclude bilateral and multilateral agreements aimed at balancing negotiating positions in trade and at defending their interests jointly vis-à-vis economically stronger States. Such instruments include free-trade areas, customs unions and agreements on mutual recognition of standards (for example, the Customs Union of the Eurasian Economic Union or free-trade agreements concluded under the CPTPP), which enable participants to reduce barriers and conduct negotiations on more equal terms. These treaty-based regimes, together with the law of the World Trade Organization and regional integration arrangements, form an essential part of contemporary international economic law. As at 2025, several relatively stable centres of power have taken shape in the international system, including the United States of America, the People’s Republic of China, the Russian Federation, the European Union and the Republic of India. In earlier scholarship on international law, it was common to classify legal systems by “legal families”: the Anglo-American (case-law-based) family, the continental (codified) family, Islamic law, traditional legal systems and others. However, under present conditions this typology is progressively losing its significance as the sole basis for comparative analysis. In continental systems such as the Russian legal order there is a growing importance of judicial practice, particularly in economic disputes, whereas in case-law-based systems such as that of the United States extensive work is being undertaken on the consolidation and systematization of jurisprudence, resulting in compilations and standard collections of legal positions; in both instances, transnational references to international and comparative law increasingly inform judicial reasoning. Modern information technologies, particularly systems of artificial intelligence, have a significant impact on law-application processes. Intelligent platforms designed for the analysis of judicial practice make it possible to identify relevant precedents and legal positions within fractions of a second. This contributes to the gradual convergence of legal systems, especially as regards methods of legal reasoning, the development of doctrine and the understanding of the principle of justice as a standard that does not depend on the national origin of a rule, while at the same time raising new questions concerning transparency, accountability and due process in the use of algorithmic tools in judicial and arbitral proceedings. Contemporary international legal practice increasingly demonstrates the mutual penetration of public-law and private-law elements. States introduce targeted sanctions regimes in respect of natural and legal persons, while private actors, in turn, bring claims against States before international and supranational fora, including in environmental and investment disputes. Under these conditions, the traditional divide between public and private law becomes less clear-cut, and there emerges a need for a new type of legal thinking oriented towards functional specialization and sensitive to the interaction between international, regional and domestic norms. In legal scholarship there is a discernible tendency towards the formation of disciplines focused on specific regulatory domains: space law, digital law, tax law, international trade law, investment law and others. This approach proves particularly effective in a transnational legal environment, as it allows norms to be systematized with due regard to the specificities of relevant legal relations and to established practice. International construction law may be seen as one of such functional fields at the intersection of general international law, international economic law, international investment law, international environmental law and the law of the sea. This monograph is devoted to the study of international construction law – a specific field of public and private international regulation that encompasses legal relations arising in connection with the implementation of transboundary construction projects. Within this field, a particular applied dimension stands out: international construction contract law, whose subject-matter includes contractual structures, mechanisms of contract administration, methods of risk allocation and means of dispute settlement in international construction contracts and related proceedings, including arbitration and other forms of dispute resolution. The monograph is based on thirty independent research projects in the field of international construction law and international construction contract law, each of which corresponds to a separate chapter of the book. On the basis of each project, a stand-alone scholarly article has been prepared and published in a peer-reviewed law journal; in total, thirty articles have been published. The overwhelming majority of these journals are included in the list of the Higher Attestation Commission of the Russian Federation (VAK) and belong to the first or second quartiles of relevant journal-ranking systems. This prior peer review and dissemination of results ensure a high degree of verification of the arguments advanced and bring the quality of the research into line with contemporary international academic standards in public international law and related fields.