On October 27, 2015, the United Nations General Assembly by a near unanimous vote of 191 in favor to 2 against adopted Resolution A/Res/70/5 on the “[n]ecessity of ending the economic, commercial and financial embargo imposed by the United States of America against Cuba.” It would mark the 24th consecutive time that the General Assembly had called for the lifting of the United States' blockade against Cuba. This last resolution, while acknowledging and welcoming the re-establishment of diplomatic relations between the two Governments, reiterated

This resolution, as had all the previous ones, takes the position that the U.S.'s unilateral trade embargo against Cuba is contrary to its “obligations under the Charter of the United Nations and international law.” In other words, the embargo is illegal. Remarkably, only Israel and the United States voted against the resolution. The United States has always maintained that the embargo is an appropriate countermeasure to the Cuban expropriation of U.S. owned property and for Cuba's interventions in Latin America and Africa.

What Nigel D. White has done with his 208-page book is to hold brief for the world against Israel and the United States in this legal dispute centering on the legality of the US trade embargo against Cuba. In nine crisply written chapters, White makes the case of why the embargo is illegal under international law. Chapter 1 is the introduction, where he delves into the relevance of international law to the issues at stake. He posits that the maintenance of the embargo over a period of five decades suggests that it is driven more by ideology and politics rather than by fidelity to international law. White explains what he means by international law in this context. He is quick to point out the consensual nature of international law and, therefore, the need to avoid imputing “obligations to the two countries that they do not have, for instance, under human rights treaties.” The relevant source of the applicable international law is customary law especially that relating to the prohibition of the use of force. However, White implies that international law does not seem adequate to provide all the answers to the conundrum of the Cuban embargo.

In Chapter 2, “Cuba's struggle for independence,” White chronicles the history of Cuba as a way of putting the embargo in its proper context. He explains that “the history of Cuba is a history of the struggle for self-determination of the Cuban people-initially from Spain, then from the United States and, finally, from Soviet Communism.” White states that this chapter sets up one of the central questions his book tries to answer, namely, whether given the history of Cuba, “it is possible or indeed desirable to have a universal set of rules regarding international rights and wrongs of Cuba and the United States.” Put differently, he asks whether “international laws are so indeterminate and contradictory that they constantly oscillate between explanations for behavior and attempts at controlling it?” White promises that his discussion in Chapter 2 and those in the next three chapters will be the building blocks on which to base his analysis of the issues as a prelude to answering the “fundamental questions about international law, about its purpose and function.”

In Chapter 3, “Colonialism, Imperialism and Pariah States,” White characterizes the relationship between the United States and Cuba as having travelled from colonialism through imperialism and eventually to the point where Cuba became a pariah state. He traces the role of international law in this history, proclaiming that when examined against the backdrop of this history, “the core ideas of statehood, independence, sovereignty and self-determination, the bread-and-butter of international law have a darker provenance than assumed in modern literature.” International law also favored the United States over Cuba in the Cuban nationalization of its sugar industry. The declaration of a New International Economic Order (NIEO) and other challenges to the status quo has done little to protect Cuba in its dispute with the United States. For instance, the Calvo doctrine, proposed by the Latin American countries, has to all intents and purposes been outdueled by the Hull formula of “a prompt, adequate and effective” compensation as the measure of damages for expropriated foreign property. White concludes Chapter 3 by noting that “although the rules of international law did not favor Cuba's choice of economic future, they did provide it with some protection from external intervention.”

In Chapter 4, “Exporting Revolution, Importing Revolution,” White considers the legality of Cuba's early interventions in Latin America and Africa, its later interventions in Nicaragua and Grenada, and Cuba's own quest for external and internal self-determination. He ends the discussion without providing an answer to the question he stresses is at the heart of the chapter, namely, “whether international law permits the US to take on the role of world police force and take measures (principally the embargo) against Cuba for its interventions in Latin America and Africa, as well as punish Cuba for its seizures of US-owned property in the early years of the revolution.” That answer has to await further discussion and analysis.

In Chapter 5, “Self-help and International Law,” White contrasts the apparent equality of sovereign states before the law and the inequality among states in the world outside the Peace Palace in The Hague. White points out that in the 1986 Nicaragua Case, for instance, the International Court of Justice affirmed the UN Charter principle of sovereign equality of states. Yet because most international legal disputes are resolved through the mechanism of self-help and not through judicial intervention, the process becomes tainted with inequality. He explains that this is so because self-help tends to favor stronger states. His implication is that this phenomenon lurks behind the Cuban-US dispute.

Chapter 6 gives an outline legal history of the Cuban embargo from the Presidential Executive Order that initiated it in 1960 to its present formulation as pieces of legislation, first under the Cuba Democracy Act, 1962 (the Torricelli Act) and subsequently, the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act (LIBERTAD) 1996, the Helms-Burton Act. White discusses the challenges that the Helms-Burton Act has faced from US allies who are affronted by its extraterritorial reach and the sustained hostility it has had to endure at the UN General Assembly. He reserves the treatment of its legality and the legality of the acts of the Cuban government for the next chapter.

Chapter 7, “Violations, Responsibility and Remedies,” is the heart of the book. White writes that “[t]his chapter catalogs the wrongful acts committed by both states, and re-introduces the concept of responsibility for those breaches, as well as the possibilities for remedies and access to justice.” White explains that in any legal system there must be liability for failure to observe obligations imposed by its rules. In international law, the secondary rules that determine such liability are called the rules on state responsibility. He draws on the International Law Commission's (ILC) Articles on Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts of 2001 as the authority for his analysis. He undertakes an analysis of Cuba's conduct under international law and weighs them against the U.S. conduct. In the end, White is of the view that the change in government in Cuba in 1959 was not a breach of international law even if the new government was not democratic. Also, the Cuban nationalizations being for a public purpose and not anti-discriminatory were not per se illegal. He thinks the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Banco Nacional de Cuba v. Sabbatino acknowledged as much by categorizing them as the “act of state.” However, he is mindful of the fact that the issue of the measure of compensation remains unsettled. White thinks that some of the Cuban interventions in Latin America in the 1960s and 1970s violated fundamental principles of international law. However, Cuba's interventions in Africa in the 1970s and 1980s were not so clearly unlawful uses of force since they were in support of an established or emerging government. Relying, in part, on the law and jurisprudence of the Inter-American human rights as well as the United Nations human rights systems, White acknowledges that the Cuban government may have violated the civil and political rights of individuals within its jurisdiction.

After reviewing U.S. conduct against Cuba under international law, White concludes

In addition, White seems to imply that it may be possible to attach responsibility to the U.S. for the devastating effects of the embargo on the health of the Cuban people. The rest of Chapter 7 is devoted to the question of access to justice in international law and it serves as a prelude to the more in depth treatment of the “legal framework for peaceful settlement” of the Cuban-U.S. dispute in Chapter 8.

In some sense, part of the analysis in Chapter 8 has been overtaken by events. White had outlined the path to a peaceful settlement of the Cuban–U.S. dispute and central to this path was the normalization of diplomatic relations between the two countries. On July 20, 2015, Cuba and the U.S. opened their embassies, each in the other's country, signifying the resumption of diplomatic relations between them. However, as long as the embargo remains in place, much of White's analysis is still relevant. White considers the role of law in the political settlement of disputes, the need to weigh options in the wider political context, and the importance of reciprocity and restorative justice, all aimed at crafting a peace agreement that would provide a forum for the settlement of the economic, political, and legal disputes between Cuba and the U.S.

According to White, “despite the origins of the dispute, self-determination and human rights are at its heart, and disagreement on their meaning and application continue to fuel the dispute.” White proposes a set of solutions to the dispute that includes a peace process that protects self-determination and civil-political rights through Cuban ratification of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. In other words, a process that brings Cuba into the international human rights regime. White's solution for the issue of compensation for losses suffered would also entail, “in return for the Cuban government dropping any possible claim to damages caused by the embargo, the US government would not only bring an end to the embargo but call a halt to all claims arising from the revolutionary government's nationalisation programme.”

In his concluding chapter, White returns to his main theme, namely, the issue of the relevance of international law to this dispute. While acknowledging the immense hold that politics has had on the present dispute, White maintains that international law is still the key or part of the key to its settlement. White writes, “Once the political deadlock is broken, international law will provide the framework within which the parties can negotiate to settle primarily through mediation, inquiry and a compensation commission.” More to the point, White predicts the end of the embargo and calls on international law to play its rightful role in its demise. He concludes

All in all, White has shed a lot of light on this decades-long dispute between Cuba and the U.S. Although his bias is obvious from the onset, he has given a faithful and balanced account of each side's positions and policies. In addition, his discussion of the “fundamental questions about international law, about its purpose and function” are extremely instructive. It is indeed true that the book will be of great interest to researchers and students of public international law, international relations, and US and Latin American politics. It is helpful that White has an easy writing style and the book is properly indexed to facilitate easy reference.