Mary Ellen O'Connell is the Robert and Marion Short Professor of Law and is Research Professor of International Dispute Resolution – Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, University of Notre Dame, Indiana. She was previously a vice president of the American Society of International Law and chaired the Use of Force Committee of the International Law Association. She has also practised law with the Washington, DC-based law firm, Covington & Burling. Christian J. Tams is Professor of International Law at the University of Glasgow, where he directs the Research Group on International Law, Conflict and Security. His academic work focuses on the use of force, investment law and international courts and tribunals. In addition to his academic work, Professor Tams regularly advises states and other actors in matters of international law, recently acting in proceedings before the International Court of Justice, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, the Iran-US Claims Tribunal, as well as arbitral tribunals (ICSID, ICC). Dire Tladi is a Professor of International Law at the University of Pretoria. He is a member of the UN International Law Commission and is Special Rapporteur on Peremptory Norms of General International Law (Jus Cogens) and of the Institute de Droit International. He is former Deputy Legal Adviser of the South Africa Department of Foreign Affairs and previously legal adviser to the South African Mission to the United Nations in New York, including during its 2011–2012 tenure on the UN Security Council. He also served as Special Adviser to the South African Foreign Minister.

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• Introduction to the series: trialogical international law Anne Peters; Introduction: dilution of self-defence and its discontents Anne Peters and Christian Marxsen; 1. The use of force in self-defence against non-state actors, decline of collective security and the rise of unilateralism: whither international law? Dire Tladi; 2. Self-defence against non-state actors: making sense of the 'armed attack' requirement Christian J. Tams; 3. Self-defence, pernicious doctrines, peremptory norms Mary Ellen O'Connell; Conclusion: self-defence against non-state actors – the way ahead Christian Marxsen and Anne Peters.