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Andreas Müller
Anne Peters' most recent book is an equally important and topical contribution to the international law discourse. At the core of her voluminous �uvre lies, as the subtitle indicates, the question of the "legal status of the individual in public international law". At the same time, the title Beyond Human Rights conveys the idea that the co-director of the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law in Heidelberg and former president of the European Society of International Law does not cover the subject matter in its entirety but, rather, has opted to leave aside, or rather to presuppose, the very area of international law where one would be inclined to look first for insight and inspiration, namely international human rights law. As the author acknowledges herself, international human rights are '"the pivotal and completely undisputed element of the international legal status of the individual" (at 27).
In contrast, Peters' own study sets out for the more open and uncharted territory of so-called "simple" rights and duties. It is with this peculiar perspective that the book seeks to tackle its guiding question - that is, how the phenomenon of a strongly increasing number of individual rights and duties that may be observed in contemporary international law "can be described, systematised, and evaluated in a legally sound manner" (at 2)
