ENGAGING WITH INTERNATIONAL LAW

2020 ◽  
Vol 69 (3) ◽  
pp. 505-519
Author(s):  
Abdulqawi Ahmed Yusuf

AbstractThis article considers the positive evolution of international law in the past century, and the emergence of a rules-based multilateral system under the UN Charter, which has, inter alia, enabled formerly colonised peoples to exercise their right to self-determination and prohibited the use of force in international relations. The author reaffirms his faith in the ability of international law to provide a common language for the international community to face successfully common challenges, such as poverty, global warming, and the protection of privacy rights in the era of social media and artificial intelligence. Looking beyond traditional beneficiaries and duty-bearers of international obligations, the author makes a case for all actors to engage in respecting, upholding and promoting international law.

1914 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-49
Author(s):  
Alfred L. P. Dennis

War has marked the year 1913; and charges and countercharges as to alleged atrocities by belligerents have been rife. Treaties were drawn to be promptly torn up; and solemn declarations of intention and policy often proved futile. The existence of internal disorder and the outbreak of domestic revolutions in several countries have also exerted disturbing influences on international relations. The result was economic loss and diplomatic tension even well beyond the field of military operations. And these conditions have led to renewed activity in the struggle for concessions and investment in renascent communities. Racial and religious sentiments have also aroused bitter feeling; while political leaders in several countries compel renewed consideration of the weight of individuals in the determination of the world's affairs.In large part the problems of 1913 were historic; but in part they were affected by apparently impending changes which we cannot as yet define. Thus the influence of socialism and of various forms of radical thought on international relations is a factor. The adoption of oil as a naval fuel, the opening of the Panama Canal, the plans for administrative reorganization of Turkey, and its capitalistic development, the renewed debate as to the Monroe doctrine, and the problem of China are all matters whose future significance scarcely concern us here; but their influence in the past year has been unquestionably great. We cannot estimate as yet the true value of many recommendations touching various fields of international coöperation; and the value of delay in international action still remains in dispute. So on the whole the year 1913 has apparently been the year of the cynic.


Legal Studies ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 469-496 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aoife O'Donoghue

In the pantheon of approaches open to participants in the pacific settlement of disputes, good offices holds a noteworthy place. The evolution of good offices over the past century is concurrent with a trend of considerable transformation within international law, including – amongst other changes – a move away from a state-led legal order, including in good offices following the emergence of the heads of international organisations as its prime users, and a process of legalisation and specialisation within the subject that has entirely altered its character. These changes have led to a redefinition of good offices that stresses the actor carrying out the role above the form that it takes. To accompany these changes in practice, there is a need for a transformation in the legal analysis and definition of good offices. One potential option in achieving this end is Bell'slex pacificatoria. If good offices is to continue to play a significant role in the settlement of violent conflicts, a fully developed legal analysis is necessary to grasp both its historical development and its potential future role.


Author(s):  
Francesca Musiani

"Digital sovereignty" is the idea that states should “reaffirm” their authority over the Internet and protect their citizens, institutions, and businesses from the multiple challenges to their nation’s self-determination in the digital sphere. According to this principle, sovereignty depends on more than supranational alliances or international legal instruments, military might or trade: it depends on locally-owned, controlled and operated innovation ecosystems, able to increase states’ technical and economic independence and autonomy. Presently, digital sovereignty is understood primarily as a legal concept and a set of political discourses. As a consequence, it is predominantly analysed by political science, international relations and international law. However, the study of digital sovereignty as a set of infrastructures and socio-material practices has been largely neglected. In this proposal, I argue that the concept of (digital) sovereignty should also be studied via the infrastructure-embedded “situated practices” of various political and economic projects which aim to establish autonomous digital infrastructures in a hyperconnected world. Although this contribution is also a call for a wider and comparative research programme, I will focus here on the “pilot case” of Russia, which is the subject of an ongoing research project. Ultimately, the analysis of infrastructure-embedded digital sovereignty practices in Russia shows how the Russian discourse on Internet sovereignty as a centralized and top-down apparatus paradoxically open up technical and legal opportunities for mundane resistances and the existence of “parallel” Runets, where particular instantiations of informational freedom are still possible.


2020 ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Heather L. Dichter

Sport and diplomacy have been mutually intertwined in transnational networks of governance and competition—not just on the field of play—and the nongovernmental bodies controlling the sport play an important role within the relationship between soccer and diplomacy. The repeated uses of the game of soccer by so many states across the globe, spanning every continent reveals how integral the sport is to international relations. As soccer has pursued a goal of global engagement to consolidate its position as the world’s preeminent sport in the past century, it has increasingly had to reckon or negotiate with the nation-state. Simultaneously, as state sovereignty has been challenged by the constituent and much-debated forces of globalization, so have longstanding characteristics of soccer’s operation—most notably in a contested relationship between the national, regional, and international level. This introduction addresses those aspects and provides an overview of the book.


Author(s):  
Rosemary Rayfuse

In the past century, a large number of bilateral, regional, and global agreements have been adopted relating to the protection, preservation, conservation, and management of the Earth's terrestrial and marine species and genetic resources. Despite the vast amount of international law relating to the conservation of biological resources, species, habitat, and genetic diversity loss is now considered to be reaching crisis proportions, with potentially catastrophic consequences for humankind. This article examines the current international legal regime for the protection of the Earth's biological resources. It begins with a discussion of the meaning of the term ‘biological resources’, the philosophical rationales for their protection, and the theoretical approaches thereto. The article then examines the various legal regimes and regulatory measures that have been adopted. The types of regimes for the conservation of biological resources include the regulation of harvest (harvest of species and genetic resources), habitat protection, and regulation of trade (control of exploitation and introduction of alien or invasive species). The article also considers measures regulating direct threats and indirect threats.


1951 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 142-145 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pitman B. Potter

Members of the American Society of International Law are by inference charged by the Constitution of their Society with doing all that is possible to promote the study and development of international law and the conduct of international affairs on the basis of law and justice. For this purpose it is not sufficient to study and advocate the development of the law itself or for its own sake. Much attention must be given, certainly much more than has been given in the past, to the second section of the mandate, partly because of its own importance and partly to provide the kind of international situation where the law can thrive and be effective— which in turn is calculated to promote peace and justice. Friends of international law cannot afford to evade even the most difficult and delicate issues in the field of international relations on the ground that they are purely political in character.


2003 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 443-460 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Little

This Forum has two main aims. First and foremost, it is designed to assess the relevance of American realism in the wake of developments that are considered to have transformed international relations over the past decade. A second aim, but one that is central to my contribution, is to assess whether or not the resurgent English School provides the foundations for an approach that can account more effectively for developments in the post-Cold War world than American realism.


2012 ◽  
Vol 4 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 195-224 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Scott

This essay is an exploration of the contemporary normative conditions of thinking about the problem of sovereignty. Specifically it is a consideration of some aspects of the way in which the problem of Third World sovereignty has been taken up and argued out in international relations theory and international law on the legal-political terrain of self-determination. The essay traces the transformation of the norm of self-determination as an anti-colonial standard to its post-Cold War re-composition as a norm of democratic governance.


1937 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 431-448
Author(s):  
Denys P. Myers

There are estimated to be 2,077,000,000 people now alive at a given moment on the 51,104,000 square miles of the continents, subcontinents and islands which constitute the earth’s inhabited land surface. They make extensive use of the 144,478,000 square miles of the world’s water area. Within the past century the living generations have come to control the entire surface of the earth with substantial completeness through the mechanisms of society which they have created; but they do not even yet utilize its land areas fully.


Author(s):  
Azer Kagraman Ogly Kagramanov

The subject of this research is the examination of evolution of the idea of self-determination of peoples based on the fundamental works of the Russian and foreign scholars, thinkers of the antiquity and modernity. The author considers the transformations experienced by the principle of self-determination at various historical stages of development; as well as builds a corresponding systems of the development cycles. The conclusion is made that after conception of the idea of self-determination, the colonial powers viewed this concept as ethical, seeing the threat to legitimacy of the established order. Therefore, throughout almost a century, the leading countries refused to include this right into the corresponding international and domestic documents. The main conclusions are as follows: after consolidation of the principle in the Charter of the United Nations, it became the foundation for the emergence of news states and destruction of the colonial world; the principle served as a leitmotif for the development of human rights and international relations, but at the same time became a threat and challenge to the territorial integrity; wars between the countries are replaced with the civil and interethnic conflicts; the world is captured with such phenomena as state nationalism that subsequently grew into extremely radical forms, such as fascism and Nazism; the modern international law actively promotes the two competing principles – territorial integrity and self-determination; in modern world, the right to self-determination is not limited by peoples under the colonial past – there occur new forms of self-determination that threaten the existence of sovereign states. Uncertainty of the status of the newly emerged states formations serves as the source of domestic and international tension, which inevitably leads to intergovernmental clashes and negatively impacts geopolitical situation in separate regions and in the world as a whole.


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