The codification of public international law

New States and International Law. By R. P. Anand. (Delhi: Vikas Publishing House, 1972. Pp. 116. Index.) This book, a collection of lectures delivered by Dr. Anand at several universities in India during 1970, discusses within a legal framework a wide array of contemporary concerns and demands made by a vast majority of African and Asian states. The opening chapter offers a concise historical background on the evolution and development of traditional international law, which the author notes "was passed on to the present as a legacy of colonial and imperialist age." Thus, the stage is set for the challenges by the new states to what they perceived to be the "Eurocentric nature of this law developed by and for the benefit of the rich, industrial, and powerful states of Western Europe and the United States." Initially, the thrust of the new states' challenges was on colonial issues and the convenient forum was the UN General Assembly. The author illustrates the point by briefly juxtaposing responses at the United Nations of the "old" and the "new" states to India's forcible takeover of Goa from Portugal. He, however, cautions against the overly broad generalizations which suggest that there is an extensive rejection by the new states of the present system of international law or that, whatever the extent of such rejection, it is caused by either the new states' cultural traditions or their lack of participation in the formulation of the traditional international law norms.