Micronations and the Search for Sovereignty

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harry Hobbs ◽  
George Williams
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Political Change ◽  
Legitimate Authority ◽  
Public Office ◽  
Political Disagreement ◽  
Comprehensive Examination

Political disagreement is a fact of life. Such conflict can prompt people to stand for public office and seek to realise political change. Others take a different route; they start their own country. Micronations and the Search for Sovereignty is the first comprehensive examination of the phenomenon of people purporting to secede and create their own country. It analyses why micronations are not states for the purposes of international law, considers the factors that motivate individuals to separate and found their own nation, examines the legal justifications that they offer and explores the responses of recognised sovereign states. In doing so, this book develops a rich body of material through which to reflect on conventional understandings of statehood, sovereignty and legitimate authority. Authored in a lively and accessible style, Micronations and the Search for Sovereignty will be valuable reading for scholars and general audiences.

Piracy and Law in the Ottoman Mediterranean

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joshua M. White
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Mediterranean Basin ◽  
Islamic Law ◽  
Comprehensive Examination ◽  
Legal Space ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
First Time ◽  
Eastern Half ◽  
The Mediterranean Basin

This book offers a comprehensive examination of the shape and impact of piracy in the eastern half of the Mediterranean and the Ottoman Empire’s administrative, legal, and diplomatic response. In the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, piracy had a tremendous effect on the formation of international law, the conduct of diplomacy, the articulation of Ottoman imperial and Islamic law, and their application in Ottoman courts. Piracy and Law draws on research in archives and libraries in Istanbul, Venice, Crete, London, and Paris to bring the Ottoman state and Ottoman victims into the story for the first time. It explains why piracy exploded after the 1570s and why the Ottoman state was largely unable to marshal an effective military solution even as it responded dynamically in the spheres of law and diplomacy. By focusing on the Ottoman victims, jurists, and officials who had to contend most with the consequences of piracy, Piracy and Law reveals a broader range of piratical practitioners than the Muslim and Catholic corsairs who have typically been the focus of study and considers their consequences for the Ottoman state and those who traveled through Ottoman waters. This book argues that what made the eastern half of the Mediterranean basin the Ottoman Mediterranean, more than sovereignty or naval supremacy—which was ephemeral—was that it was a legal space. The challenge of piracy helped to define its contours.

Religious Zionism, Jewish Law, and the Morality of War

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Eisen
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Legitimate Authority ◽  
Jewish Law ◽  
Jewish State ◽  
Moral Issues ◽  
Law And Ethics ◽  
Present Book ◽  
History Of ◽  
State Of Israel ◽  
Morality Of War

When the state of Israel was established in 1948, it was immediately thrust into war, and rabbis in the religious Zionist community were challenged with constructing a body of Jewish law to deal with this turn of events. Laws had to be “constructed” here because Jewish law had developed mostly during prior centuries when Jews had no state or army, and therefore it contained little material on war. The rabbis in the religious Zionist camp responded to this challenge by creating a substantial corpus of laws on war, and they did so with remarkable ingenuity and creativity. The work of these rabbis represents a fascinating chapter in the history of Jewish law and ethics, but it has attracted relatively little attention from academic scholars. The purpose of the present book is therefore to bring some of their work to light. It examines how five of the leading rabbis in the religious Zionist community dealt with key moral issues in the waging of war. Chapters are devoted to R. Abraham Isaac Kook, R. Isaac Halevi Herzog, R. Eliezer Waldenberg, R. Sha’ul Yisraeli, and R. Shlomo Goren. The moral issues examined include the question of who is a legitimate authority for initiating a war, why Jews in a modern Jewish state can be drafted to fight on its behalf, and whether the killing of enemy civilians is justified. Other issues examined include how the laws of war as formulated by religious Zionist rabbis compares to those of international law.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kubo Mačák
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Research Methodology ◽  
Armed Conflict ◽  
Armed Conflicts ◽  
Normative Framework ◽  
Comprehensive Examination

This chapter introduces the central aim of this book: to provide a comprehensive examination of the notion, process, and effects of internationalization of armed conflicts in international law. It presents a brief research overview, outlining the scope of the enquiry, the research methodology, and the structure of the book. It then lays out the conceptual and normative framework for the rest of the book. To that end, it first justifies the need for the present study by confirming the continuing distinction between international and non-international armed conflicts in international law. Then, it puts forward a conception of internationalization that expresses the legal transformation from a non-international to an international armed conflict.

Sources and the Legitimate Authority of International Law

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
José Luis Martí
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
International Law ◽  
International Institutions ◽  
Current System ◽  
Democratic Legitimacy ◽  
Legitimate Authority ◽  
Basic Principles ◽  
Democratic Equality ◽  
International Laws ◽  
The Right

This chapter considers that political philosophers in recent years are paying growing attention to the legitimacy of international law and international institutions and are asking who has the right to rule and adequate standing to create international laws, and how. It attempts to contribute to this debate in normative political philosophy through the more specific lens of democratic legitimacy. After presenting certain conceptual clarifications, the chapter identifies three basic principles of democratic legitimacy: the principle of ultimate popular control, the principle of democratic equality, and the principle of deliberative contestability, which can be instantiated in six more concrete requirements. The chapter continues by exploring the limitations of two influential views on the democratic legitimacy of international law. Finally, the chapter concludes by expressing some scepticism about the degree to which the current system of sources of international law is democratically legitimate.

scholarly journals State Consent and Disagreement in International Law-Making. Dissolving the Paradox

2016 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 289-316 ◽  
Author(s):  
SAMANTHA BESSON
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Legal Positivism ◽  
Legitimate Authority ◽  
Political Equality ◽  
Reasonable Disagreement ◽  
Democratic State ◽  
Sovereign Equality ◽  
State Consent ◽  
Law Making

AbstractThis article starts with a paradox: international law-making is ridden with reasonable disagreement and yet no state can be bound by international law without its consent and hence without agreement. Breaking away from the pragmatic resignation that prevails among international law scholars on this question, the article proposes an interpretation of the role of state consent that both fits and justifies its central role in the practice of international law-making and, hopefully, strengthens the latter's legitimacy in the future. Its proposed justification actually lies in the circumstances of reasonable disagreement among democratic states and this proposal dissolves the paradox. The article argues that, in international law as it is the case domestically, consent is neither a criterion of validity of law nor a ground for its legitimate authority. It also dispels two myths about state consent: its necessary relationship to legal positivism and state sovereignty. Instead, the article argues, the role of democratic state consent is that of an exception to the legitimate authority of international law and hence to its bindingness in a concrete case. While the legitimacy of international law is not democratic, the democratic nature of states and their democratic accountability to their people matter. This is especially the case in circumstances of widespread and persistent reasonable disagreement as they prevail among democratic states in international law-making. In these circumstances, respecting the sovereign equality of democratic states by requiring their consent is the way to grant an equal voice to their people. Of course, there are limits to the democratic state exception that are inherent to both its democratic dimension (it requires respecting basic political equality) and its consensual dimension (it requires that consent is expressed in a free, fair and informed fashion). The article concludes by showing how the proposed disagreement-attuned account of democratic state consent explains various characteristics of the main international law-making processes, i.e., treaties and custom.

A Human Rights Approach to Statelessness in the Middle East

2002 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 527-552
Author(s):  
Curtis F. Doebbler
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Middle East ◽  
International Law ◽  
Political Change ◽  
International Human Rights Law ◽  
Human Rights Law ◽  
International Human Rights ◽  
Adequate Response ◽  
International Human

Despite repeated attempts to eliminate statelessness and to provide for the protection of stateless persons, international law has not been able to provide an adequate response to these problems. In the Middle East the problem has continued to grow as social and political change pushes people into becoming stateless and fails to provide those who are stateless with adequate protection. The treaties that have attempted to prevent this practice have failed. At the same time the lex specialis aimed at protecting people from the consequences of statelessness have also failed. The result has been a lacuna in the protection of stateless persons. This article suggests that a step towards filling this gap might be made by applying general international human rights law to protect stateless persons.

Regulatory Standards, Legitimate Authority and the Adjudicatory Role

2021 ◽  
pp. 279-304
Author(s):  
Caroline E. Foster
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Regulatory Action ◽  
Legitimate Authority ◽  
Political Involvement ◽  
International Courts ◽  
Regulatory Standards

Part V contains two chapters, Chapter Nine and Chapter Ten. These chapters return to the conceptual questions raised by the emergence of global regulatory standards in international courts and tribunals. Chapter Nine evaluates overall how the standards preserve, enhance or undermine international law’s claim to legitimate authority. Broadly, the standards appear to strengthen traditional procedural justifications of authority. However, substantively they contribute only partially to an ideal balancing of international interests and do not promise the co-ordination between domestic and international legal orders needed for international law better to serve its subjects by better balancing competing global interests. More is not to be expected, though. International courts and tribunals remain formally and socially constrained; inter alia the parties’ pleadings are often influential. Greater international political involvement in the development of global regulatory standards would be appropriate, especially in relation to the possible future adoption of regulatory coherence tests that might require proportionality in regulatory action.

Defying the Theoretical Constraints of State-Centric Approaches: A Review ofNon-State Actors in International Law

2017 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-105
Author(s):  
Marcos D Kotlik
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Multidisciplinary Approach ◽  
Comprehensive Examination ◽  
State Actors

This review ofNon-State Actors in International Law, edited by Math Noortmann, August Reinisch and Cedric Ryngaert (Hart Publishing, 2015), focuses on the constraints of state-centric approaches in accurately depicting the role and status of non-state actors in the international arena. As the book presents a comprehensive examination of the influence of diverse entities in a variety of fields, such limitations are evidenced and inevitably lead to the reassessment of novel theoretical standpoints, as well as to the recognition that a multidisciplinary approach is much needed in order to advance further studies on the issue.

Sources and the Legitimate Authority of International Law

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Collins
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
The Other ◽  
Customary Law ◽  
Legitimate Authority ◽  
Formal Assessment ◽  
Normative Evaluation

This chapter is concerned with international law’s claim to legitimate authority and the role played by the doctrine of sources in meeting this claim. It argues that the kind of formal assessment of legality inherent in sources doctrine expresses a specific view of the legitimate authority of international law. Here, the chapter tries to defuse two misleading lines of attack: one based on the vagaries of the processes of customary law formation and ascertainment and the other based upon the exhaustiveness of sources doctrine as traditionally conceived. As this chapter shows, both criticisms miss their target by overplaying what is at stake in this view of international law’s legitimate authority. Whilst the chapter therefore defends this ‘doctrinal’ view, it nonetheless shows how a broader theory of the legitimacy of international law will necessarily have to balance content-dependent and content-independent normative evaluation.

On Sovereignties in Islamic Legal History

2012 ◽  
Vol 4 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 265-305 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anver M. Emon
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Legal History ◽  
Legitimate Authority ◽  
Law And Politics ◽  
Islamic Thought ◽  
Competing Ideas ◽  
Islamic Legal History

The concept of sovereignty has posed important challenges in the ongoing debates and discourses on Islam and international law. This essay illustrates how sovereignty reflects competing ideas about legitimate authority by examining and exploring distinct debates in Islamic thought, all of which share a concern about the nature, scope, and contours of legitimacy and authority. This article does not offer a prescriptive argument for a robust notion of sovereignty in Islam, nor does it attempt to judge the Islamic past pursuant to contemporary strands of political theory. Rather, it explores various strands of historical Islamic intellectual debate that traverse the realms of theology, law and politics in order to reflect on the conditions of different sovereignties and their relationship to one another.

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