How Not to Do Things with International Law

2018 ◽  
Vol 32 (4) ◽  
pp. 483-491 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne Peters
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
International Law ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Recent Book ◽  
International Affairs ◽  
Power Politics ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Core Points ◽  
International Rule

AbstractIn his recent book, Ian Hurd argues that international law is pervasive and foundational in international affairs and that the international rule of law is hegemonic over states. While the book is provocative and compelling, it fails to convince on two core points. First, Hurd does not offer a real alternative to international relations realism. Indeed, the book could unwittingly reinforce the realist stance that international law is simply power politics in disguise. Second, the book offers a problematic conception of international rule of law. What Hurd describes is at best a rule by law, or perhaps more appropriately qualified as a travesty of the rule of law.

International ethics and international law

1992 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Terry Nardin
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
International Law ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
International Affairs ◽  
International Ethics ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Ethical Significance

In this paper I am going to argue a familiar but still controversial thesis about the relation between international ethics and international law, which I would sum up in the following list of propositions:First, international law is a source as well as an object of ethical judgements. The idea of legality or the rule of law is an ethical one, and international law has ethical significance because it gives institutional expression to the rule of law in international relations.Secondly, international law—or, more precisely, the idea of the rule of law in international relations—reflects a rule-oriented rather than outcome-oriented ethic of international affairs. By insisting on the priority of rules over outcomes, this ethic rejects consequentialism in all its forms.

Hobbes on the International Rule of Law

2014 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-64 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Dyzenhaus
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
International Law ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
The State ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
State Of Nature ◽  
Independent States ◽  
International Rule

Perhaps the most influential passage on the rule of law in international law comes from chapter 13 of Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan. In the course of describing the miserable condition of mankind in the state of nature, Hobbes remarks to readers who might be skeptical that such a state ever existed that they need only look to international relations—the relations between independent states—to observe one:But though there had never been any time, wherein particular men were in a condition of warre one against another; yet in all times, Kings, and Persons of Soveraigne authority, because of their Independency, are in continuall jealousies, and in the state and posture of Gladiators; having their weapons pointing, and their eyes fixed on one another; that is, their Forts, Garrisons, and Guns upon the Frontiers of their Kingdomes; and continuall Spyes upon their neighbours; which is a posture of War.

How to Do Things with International Law

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian Hurd
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
State Power ◽  
World Politics ◽  
State Behavior ◽  
Power Politics ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
State Action ◽  
Legal Arguments ◽  
International Rule

Conventionally understood as a set of limits on state behavior, the “rule of law” in world politics is widely assumed to serve as a progressive contribution to a just, stable, and predictable world. This book challenges this received wisdom. Bringing the study of law and legality together with power, politics, and legitimation, it illustrates the complex politics of the international rule of law. The book draws on a series of timely case studies involving recent legal arguments over war, torture, and drones to demonstrate that international law not only domesticates state power but also serves as a permissive and even empowering source of legitimation for state action—including violence and torture. Rather than a civilizing force that holds the promise of universal peace, international law is a deeply politicized set of practices driven by the pursuit of particular interests and desires. The disputes so common in world politics over what law permits and what it forbids are, therefore, fights over the legitimating effect of legality. A reconsideration of the rule of law in world politics and its relationship to state power, the book examines how and why governments use and manipulate international law in foreign policy.

An International Rule of Law

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Legal System ◽  
Rule Based ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Globalizing World ◽  
International Legal System ◽  
Elusive Concept ◽  
International Rule ◽  
Selection Of

The “international rule of law” is an elusive concept. Under this heading, mainly two variations are being discussed: The international rule of law “proper” and an “internationalized” or even “globalized” rule of law. The first usage relates to the rule of law as applied to the international legal system, that is the application of the rule of law to those legal relations and contexts that are governed by international law. In this context, the term international rule of law is often mentioned as a catchphrase which merely embellishes a discussion of international law tout court. The international rule of law is here mainly or exclusively used as shorthand for compliance with international law, a synonym for a “rule based international order,” or a signifier for the question whether international law is “real” law. This extremely loose usage of the term testifies its normative and symbolic appeal although it does not convey any additional analytic value. The second usage of the rule of law in international contexts covers all other aspects of the rule of law in a globalizing world, notably rule of law promotion in its widest sense. The increasing interaction between national and international law and between the diverse domestic legal orders (through law diffusion and reception, often again mediated by international law) is a manifestation of the second form of the rule of law. The structure of this bibliography roughly follows this bifurcation of the Rule of Law Applied to the International Legal System and the Rule of Law in a Globalizing World. Next to these two main parts, three further, separate sections discuss questions that arise at the intersection of the two variants or are of crosscutting importance to the rule of law as a whole. This includes sections on the Rule of Law as a UN Project: A Selection of UN Documents on the Rule of Law, the Interaction between the International and Domestic Rule(s) of Law, and the (International) Rule of Law: A Tool of Hegemony?.

United Nations Targeted Sanctions, the International Rule of Law and the European Court of Justice's Judgment in Kadi and al-Barakaat

2010 ◽  
Vol 79 (1) ◽  
pp. 113-140 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fredrik Stenhammar
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
International Law ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Financial Assets ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Community Law ◽  
European Court ◽  
Economic Warfare ◽  
Domestic Law ◽  
International Rule

AbstractThis article analyzes the judgment of the European Court of Justice in the Kadi and al-Barakaat case from the perspective of international law and the rule of law among nations. The conclusions drawn are with regard to international law and thus not necessarily decisive for the application of domestic law and Community law to the issue of targeted United Nations (UN) sanctions. It is argued that targeted UN sanctions in the form of blacklisting and freezing of financial assets are lawful under applicable international law as a species of economic warfare. Even if, contrary to expectation, they were unlawful when first introduced, consent and active participation on part of the European states mean that they are in all likelihood precluded from protesting against them now. The European Community Court's judgment cannot affect the validity under international law of targeted UN sanctions. If it turns out that the UN sanctions can no longer be accommodated within Community law, which is an implication but by no means an immediate result of the judgment, it will be for each state to apply its national legislation and continue to implement the sanctions, disregarding Community law if necessary. This would be a serious test of the European states' professed devotion to international law.

The Rule of Law and the Quest for Constitutional Substitutes in International Law

2014 ◽  
Vol 83 (2) ◽  
pp. 87-127 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Collins
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
International Institutions ◽  
Institutional Structure ◽  
International Affairs ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Normative Authority ◽  
International Legal Order ◽  
Sovereign Authority ◽  
Second World

The practice of modern international law seems inherently bound up with the quest for a rule of law in international affairs. This commitment to the rule of law at the international level finds expression not merely in academic literature, but has been regularly endorsed by states themselves, particularly in the context of the United Nations. Nevertheless, the pursuit of an international rule of law is an ambition which is constantly frustrated. The institutional structure of the international legal order seems incompatible with this vision, resulting in a constant sense of frustration about the apparently ‘primitive’ or otherwise constitutionally deficient institutional structure of modern international law. In fact, despite the intensification of ‘governance’ through international institutions in the years since the end of the Second World War, it seems like the proliferation and growing normative authority of international institutions more often than not gives rise to more concerns from a rule of law perspective. In this article I not only seek to understand the nature of this rule of law commitment and the reasons for this constant frustration, but in doing so I will argue that the institutional context implicit in the ideal of the rule of law is incompatible with the nature and functioning of international law. I seek to show, in fact, how the perpetual sense of frustration felt in international law’s failure to live up to this ideal stems from the fact that the rule of law is a notion which is implicitly bound up with the political context of sovereign authority within states. To attempt to impose the rule of law outside of this context will not only result in distortion and mischaracterisation, but runs the risk also of legitimising precisely the kind of arbitrary authority which is the main target of the rule of law itself.

scholarly journals 2000–2020: twenty years later, where are we in terms of the unity of international law?

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 6-23
Author(s):  
Pierre-Marie Dupuy
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
United Nations ◽  
International Law ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Legal Order ◽  
Public International Law ◽  
International Legal Order ◽  
The Hague ◽  
Peremptory Norms ◽  
International Rule

Twenty years have passed since the author's delivery in 2000 of the general course of public international law at the Hague Academy of International Law, titled ‘The Unity of the International Legal Order’. That course was designed to combat the all-too-common idea that international law was in the process of ‘fragmentation’. It did so by developing a theory focused on the existence of and tension between two forms of unity in the international legal order: the formal unity (concerning the procedures by which primary norms are created and interpreted, and their non-compliance adjudicated) and the material unity (based on the content of certain norms of general international law, peremptory norms). Twenty years later, the time is ripe to revisit this theory to determine the extent to which it is still valid as a framework for the analysis of international law, particularly as an increasing number of ‘populist’ leaders very much seem to ignore, or voluntarily deny, the validity of some of the key substantial principles on which the international legal order was re-founded within and around the United Nations in 1945. When confronted with the factual reality of the present state of international relations as well as with the evolution of the law, one can conclude that the validity of the unity of the international legal order is unfailingly maintained, and that its role in upholding the international rule of law is more important now than ever.

How to Do Things with International Law

2019 ◽  
pp. 47-57
Author(s):  
Ian Hurd
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
International Law ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Social Practice ◽  
International Politics ◽  
Practice Theory ◽  
Legal Realism ◽  
Political Legitimation ◽  
International Rule

This chapter presents an account of the international rule of law that reflects the particular dynamics of international politics, drawing on legal realism and practice theory in international relations (IR). On this reading, the international rule of law is a social practice that states and others engage in when they provide legal reasons and justifications for their actions. The goal may be either political legitimation for oneself or delegitimation of adversaries. This sort of use of international law both relies on and reinforces the idea that states should act lawfully rather than unlawfully. The priority of lawfulness is taken for granted. The chapter then outlines an approach which helps to make sense of international law's contribution to contemporary disputes and crises.

An Anatomy of International Thought

2021 ◽  
pp. 39-48
Author(s):  
Martin Wight
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
International Society ◽  
The Political ◽  
International Affairs ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
The World ◽  
Independent States ◽  
International Anarchy ◽  
International Thought

International relations encompass three aspects: international anarchy, with sovereign states recognizing no political superior; routine interactions in diplomatic, legal, and commercial institutions; and moral solidarity, with cultural and psychological links more profound than those of politics and economics. Thinkers who underscore international anarchy regard the idea of international society as fictional. Hobbes, for example, maintains that the only remedy for anarchical competition is to make a contract for a ruler or an assembly to take power and act to ensure security. Grotius and other thinkers who emphasize the extensive informal, legal, and customary interactions in international affairs highlight humanity’s sociability and its potential for constitutionalism and the rule of law. Kant and others anticipate the vindication of humanity’s potential for peace through the deepening of the material and moral interdependence of people around the world. This may come about through uniformity of independent states in standards of virtue and legitimacy or through the political and moral unification of humanity.

Theorising the international rule of law

2008 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 385-401 ◽  
Author(s):  
TERRY NARDIN
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Global Order ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Recent Trends ◽  
Kantian Theory ◽  
International Rule

AbstractRecent trends in international law scholarship recycle objections to international law advanced by an earlier generation of political and legal realists. Such objections fail to understand the place of international law in the global order. To understand that place, we must distinguish the idea of the rule of law from other understandings of law. That idea is an inherently moral one. Theories of international law that ignore the moral element in law cannot distinguish law as a constraint on power from law as an instrument of power. A Kantian theory of international law can help to recover that moral element.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document