scholarly journals A Quest for an Eco-centric Approach to International Law: the COVID-19 Pandemic as Game Changer

Jus Cogens ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara De Vido
Keyword(s):  
Global Health ◽  
International Law ◽  
Use Of Force ◽  
Legal Reasoning ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Legal Scholarship ◽  
Natural Objects ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Game Changer

Abstract This Reflection starts from the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic as unprecedented occasio to reflect on the approach to international law, which—it is contended—is anthropocentric, and its inadequacy to respond to current challenges. In the first part, the Reflection argues that there is, more than ever, an undeferrable need for a change of approach to international law toward ecocentrism, which puts the environment at the center and conceives the environment as us, including humans, non-human beings, and natural objects. To encourage the incorporation of ecocentrism in the entire discipline, the Reflection will rely on some insight of ecofeminism, whose potential has not been fully investigated in international legal scholarship. In the second part, the Reflection illustrates what an eco-centric international law would mean, imagining three possible applications: first, what the author has called environmental global health, which is connected to the current pandemic and puts into question the proposals dealing with global health that completely miss the theorization of the environment as a whole; second, how actors of international law would change according to an eco-centric perspective; and, third, how the rules prohibiting the use of force might be reconceptualized. The analysis contained in these pages cannot itself exhaust all the possible nuances of the legal reasoning, but it is aimed at being a provocative starting point for a change in the mindset and approach of international legal scholarship.

The Canon of Love against the Use of Force in Islamic and Public International Law. Part I: The Chamber of Love within Legal Discipline

2015 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 591-628 ◽  
Author(s):  
Farhad Malekian
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
International Law ◽  
Use Of Force ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Public International Law ◽  
Legal Norms ◽  
Philosophical Interpretation ◽  
Philosophy Of Love ◽  
The Law ◽  
Human Integrity

To attempt to speak coherently about the philosophy of love in conjunction with the law is an eccentric undertaking for an international lawyer. This work asserts the view that “love” plays a significant jurisprudential role in both the writing and philosophical interpretation of the law. It is a powerful norm. If the law is written and interpreted with love for human beings, the position of the use of force will be modified and concede its place to the approbation of equal justice and peace based on the primary value of human integrity. The work will be a comparative discussion, as the adherence of European states to both public international law and European Union norms suggests that neither need there be an inevitable divergence between adherence to both these and to Islamic legal norms. It brings into recognition the principle that the use of armed force for any purpose is a serious violation of the jurisprudence of law and runs contrary to the inherent integrity of humankind and the canon of love for justice.

How Many Deaths Can Article 2(4) UN Charter Die?

2021 ◽  
pp. 449-470
Author(s):  
Thilo Marauhn
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
International Law ◽  
Critical Review ◽  
Use Of Force ◽  
Legal Regime ◽  
Central Importance ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Current Trends ◽  
Starting Point

The starting point of this chapter is Thomas M. Franck’s famous 1970 essay ‘Who killed Article 2(4)?’. Thilo Marauhn takes Franck’s analysis in light of his 2003 critique ‘The United Nations After Iraq’ and discusses current trends in the justification of violence. Marauhn re-affirms Franck’s critical review of international practice in light of normative standards and warns against weakening the prohibition of the use of force. This prohibition should stand as a cornerstone of public international law, as an expression of the rule of law and in support of international law as a ‘gentle civilizer’ (Koskenniemi). Quite contrary to Chris Brown’s argument in the previous chapter (24), Thilo Marauhn emphasizes the central importance of the legal regime governing force: drawing upon developments from political practice as well as on legal debates, this chapter calls upon lawyers to live up to their responsibility and to defend the counter-factual dimension of the law.

Francisco Suárez S.J. on the End of Peaceful Order among States and Systematic Doctrinal Scholarship

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tobias Schaffner
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Practical Reasoning ◽  
Legal Reasoning ◽  
Legal Order ◽  
State Action ◽  
Peace And Justice ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
International Legal Order ◽  
Francisco Suarez

This chapter argues that the work of Suárez, like that of other theologians and natural lawyers, offers an insightful (albeit imperfect) articulation of the values of peace and justice which continue to underpin the international legal order. Suárez reminds us that the practical reasoning of all upright statesmen, citizens, and lawyers is guided by the idea of a peaceful and just order among states. Peace and justice are potentialities which individuals and whole nations can establish and preserve, as well as fail to establish or preserve, through their co-ordinated actions. His work remains insightful precisely because most of today’s accounts of international law neglect the role of peace and justice as a starting point of legal reasoning, a goal of state action, and even a source of international law.

The Canon of Love against the Use of Force in Islamic and Public International Law. Part ii: The Anatomy of Love against Violations

2015 ◽  
Vol 15 (5) ◽  
pp. 861-895 ◽  
Author(s):  
Farhad Malekian
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Law ◽  
Use Of Force ◽  
The Other ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Public International Law ◽  
Political Conflicts

Love is a norm of concern of all states and its boundaries reach even beyond the erga omnes principle but ignorance constitutes the great deficiency of human beings in Islamic and public international law. Both legal disciplines are not only against cruel human violations but also any other minor wrong. The differences between them are not as significant as first assumed. Instead, it is the other way around: the similarities are so significant as to include the very cornerstones of the various frameworks and systems, namely, their underlying principles. A wide-ranging interpretation of Islamic and public international law sources is necessary in order to put an end to all cultural, ethnic, religious, legal and political conflicts with whatever means are available – whether derived from Islamic, European, or other sources. A civilized human rights system or union does not authorize the use of force, nor do they purchase or manufacture weapons in any circumstances, for any reason and to any degree. In other words, pure love constitutes not only the de facto, but also, the de jure criteria of the intention not to segregate.

‘The greater part of jurisconsults’: On Consensus Claims and Their Footnotes in Legal Scholarship

2016 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 1021-1042 ◽  
Author(s):  
LIANNE J.M. BOER
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Use Of Force ◽  
Cyber Attacks ◽  
Legal Scholarship ◽  
Majority Opinion ◽  
Empirical Inquiry ◽  
Singular Reference ◽  
The Moment ◽  
The Individual

AbstractThis article portrays the use of consensus claims, as well as their substantiation, in the debate on cyber-attacks and Article 2(4) of the UN Charter. Focusing on (re)interpretations of the prohibition on the use of force in the light of cyber-attacks, the article first shows how scholars appeal to the ‘majority opinion’ of scholars or the ‘generally accepted’ interpretation of the norm. It points out the different uses of these ‘consensus claims’, as I refer to them, and what scholars invoke exactly when referring to this elusive majority. Elaborating on this ‘elusive’ nature of consensus, I argue that the appeal of a consensus claim lies precisely in its invocation of a fairly mystical ‘out there’. Consensus, as it turns out, evaporates the moment we attempt to substantiate it, and this might be precisely where its strength lies. The second part of the article thus shifts focus to how these claims are substantiated. An empirical inquiry into the footnotes supporting consensus claims reveals that, most of the time, writers refer to the same scholars to substantiate their claims. Making use of Henry Small's idea of ‘concept symbols’, the article argues that these most-cited scholars turn into the ‘bearers’ of majority opinion. On the level of the individual academic piece, the singular reference might appear to be fairly innocent. Yet, when considered as a more widespread practice of ‘self-referentiality’, it seriously impacts who gets a say – and thus, ultimately, what we know – in international law.

The Use of Armed Force: Contemporary Challenges in Light of Professor Skubiszewski’s Legacy

2016 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 109-128 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michał Kowalski
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Humanitarian Intervention ◽  
Use Of Force ◽  
Armed Force ◽  
Special Focus ◽  
Public International Law ◽  
Jus Ad Bellum ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Inter State

The text explores the legacy of Professor Krzysztof Skubiszewski on the use of force with special focus on his contribution to the 1969 Manual of Public International Law edited by Professor Max Sørensen, which still serves as a reference in contemporary scholarship. Firstly, an attempt to identify Professor Skubiszewski’s approach to the use of force problems is made. It is claimed that the main feature which makes this approach still attractive is perceiving jus ad bellum in a systemic way. The remaining parts of the text take this approach as a starting point for dealing with contemporary jus ad bellum challenges. Two examples are particularly focused on in this respect: the problem of humanitarian intervention and the challenged inter-State paradigm of the use of force.

No Thank You to a Radical Rewrite of the Jus ad Bellum

2013 ◽  
Vol 107 (2) ◽  
pp. 386-390 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gabor Rona ◽  
Raha Wala
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Relations ◽  
International Law ◽  
Due Process ◽  
Use Of Force ◽  
Right To Life ◽  
Legal Scholarship ◽  
Jus Ad Bellum ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Right

Just as a newspaper must separate its reporting from its editorials, legal scholarship must distinguish between representations of what the law is and what the author might like it to be. Daniel Bethlehem’s proposed principles and his arguments in support of them are an amalgam of the two that, if actualized under international law, would reverse more than a century of humanitarian and human rights progress: they would undermine the general prohibition against the use of force in international relations as well as the right to life and the scope of a state’s obligation of due process in the deprivation of life.

Holism, Chinese Medicine and Systems Ideologies: Rewriting the Past to Imagine the Future

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Volker Scheid
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Chinese Medicine ◽  
Medical Humanities ◽  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
The Past ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Us ◽  
Shared Objective ◽  
Definition Of

This chapter explores the articulations that have emerged over the last half century between various types of holism, Chinese medicine and systems biology. Given the discipline’s historical attachments to a definition of ‘medicine’ that rather narrowly refers to biomedicine as developed in Europe and the US from the eighteenth century onwards, the medical humanities are not the most obvious starting point for such an inquiry. At the same time, they do offer one advantage over neighbouring disciplines like medical history, anthropology or science and technology studies for someone like myself, a clinician as well as a historian and anthropologist: their strong commitment to the objective of facilitating better medical practice. This promise furthermore links to the wider project of critique, which, in Max Horkheimer’s definition of the term, aims at change and emancipation in order ‘to liberate human beings from the circumstances that enslave them’. If we take the critical medical humanities as explicitly affirming this shared objective and responsibility, extending the discipline’s traditional gaze is not a burden but becomes, in fact, an obligation.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document