scholarly journals Wording in International Law

2012 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 575-602 ◽  
Author(s):  
JEAN D'ASPREMONT

AbstractSince the demise of philosophical foundationalism and that of the Aristotelian idea of an inner meaning of words, scholarship about international law is no longer perceived as a mining activity geared towards the extraction of pre-existing meaning. Rather, international legal scholarship is in a state of fierce competition for persuasiveness and semantic authority. This does not elevate persuasiveness into the determinant of legality, nor does it lead to a total rejection of the internal point of view. The configuration of that competition for naming is informed by the current structure (and the membership) of the interpretative community of international law. In this competition for naming, words constitute semantic weaponry. Mention is made here of uses of words in international law to create textual economy, generate semantic instability, rough out and hone scholarly ideas, enhance textual aesthetics, yield empiricism, create straw men and preserve the argumentative character of scholarly idea, gratify oneself, boost fame and careers, and intimidate peers. It is also argued that there is nothing to rein in in the use of such semantic tactics in the interpretative community of international law, for paradigmatic revolution is meant to be permanent. It is only if international legal scholars were to lose their social identity that the competition for naming and the interpretative community of international law would vanish altogether.

2015 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 743-769 ◽  
Author(s):  
MATTHEW WINDSOR

AbstractThis article evaluates the benefits of a ‘turn to narration’ in international legal scholarship. It argues that significant attention should be paid to the narrators who employ international law as a vocabulary to further their professional projects. Theories of unreliable narration help map consensus within international law's interpretive community in a manner that is acutely sensitive to point of view and perspective. The article examines the existence and extent of unreliable narration through a case study: the practice of targeted killing by the Obama administration in the United States. The struggle for control of the narrative, by narrators with different professional roles and cognitive frames, is ultimately a struggle for interpretive power, with the resulting ability to ‘kill or capture’ divergent narrative visions. Unreliable narration offers a critical heuristic for assessing how narratives are generated, sustained, and called into question in international law, while fostering reflexive inquiry about international law as a professional discipline.


Pravni zapisi ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 488-522
Author(s):  
Goran Dajović

In The Nature of International Law, Miodrag Jovanović, generally speaking, tries to explain the concept of international law. He analyzes few typical characteristics of the prototype concept of law (institutionality, normativity, coercion and justice-aptness), and then he looks at contemporary international law through "the lenses" of these characteristics. The article pays special attention to his analysis of the normativity of (international) law. The main intention is not to criticize Jovanović's theses about the normativity of law, as such, but to point out that they are not the best possible framework for explaining the normativity of international law. Therefore, a different and more appropriate conceptual framework is presented than the one he offered in the key of Raz's idea of legal norms as exclusionary reasons for action and practical rationality. This framework is grounded on Hart's well-known idea of an internal point of view. The presented argumentation shows that within such a framework, the normativity of international law could be better explained and understood, and also it seems that certain ingrained intuitions about international law fit well into it.


2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-30
Author(s):  
Ahson Azmat

AbstractLeading accounts of tort law split cleanly into two seams. Some trace its foundations to a deontic form of morality; others to an instrumental, policy-oriented system of efficient loss allocation. An increasingly prominent alternative to both seams, Civil Recourse Theory (CRT) resists this binary by arguing that tort comprises a basic legal category, and that its directives constitute reasons for action with robust normative force. Using the familiar question whether tort’s directives are guidance rules or liability rules as a lens, or prism, this essay shows how considerations of practical reasoning undermine one of CRT’s core commitments. If tort directives exert robust normative force, we must account for its grounds—for where it comes from, and why it obtains. CRT tries to do so by co-opting H.L.A. Hart’s notion of the internal point of view, but this leveraging strategy cannot succeed: while the internal point of view sees legal directives as guides to action, tort law merely demands conformity. To be guided by a directive is to comply with it, not conform to it, so tort’s structure blocks the shortcut to normativity CRT attempts to navigate. Given the fine-grained distinctions the theory makes, and with the connection between its claims and tort’s requirements thus severed, CRT faces a dilemma: it’s either unresponsive to tort’s normative grounds, or it’s inattentive to tort’s extensional structure.


1910 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 373-383 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nathan Wolfman

A recent decision handed down by the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, and reported in its last published report, involves the broad consideration of the status of sovereigns as defendants both from the point of view of international and of municipal law. The decision concretely confirms the opinion that no matter from what point of view the theory of international law may be said to proceed, its doctrines are based on as firm principles of sound reasoning and justice as are the doctrines of the ordinary municipal law. And this notwithstanding the popular impression prevalent, especially among laymen, that international comity is the dominant principle of international law.


2017 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 799-800
Author(s):  
MÓNICA GARCÍA-SALMONES ROVIRA ◽  
PAOLO AMOROSA

The deep relation between the colonial past and contemporary international law has been convincingly established. Scholars from diverse backgrounds, employing a variety of approaches, have shown the multifaceted ways in which the colonial enterprise occasioned the birth of doctrines and practices that are still in common use. The conference that occasioned this symposium, the last of the project History of International Law: Between Religion and Empire, directed by Martti Koskenniemi, was held in Helsinki in October 2016 and approached the issue of the colonial legacy of international law from the point of view of specific histories. The ‘techniques of empire’ raised at the conference encompassed colonial governance in the broadest sense, looking at practices, norms and normative systems, doctrines and concepts, and events. The case studies making up the articles featured in the symposium treat subjects as diverse as the experiences of colonialism have been, assuming an array of forms. Even so, from the multiplicity of techniques certain patterns and themes emerge.


2009 ◽  
pp. 475-484
Author(s):  
Elena Pariotti

The paper focuses on Bobbio's argument against the possibility and the usefullness of human rights foundation/justification. This argument is criticized from both an external and the internal point of view. First, the Author questions the identification between finding a conclusive foundation for human rights and justifying human rights, since it causes a complete deny of the role of theory in understanding human rights as well as in giving them a precise content and a legal form. Then the Author argues that (i) justification of rights is implied by their judicial application and evolution; (ii) some important points in Bobbio's thought the meaning attached to crucial notion, such as equality and liberty, the link between rights, peace and democracy need the importance of theory is defended.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fabian Krause

Major CO2 emitters such as individual states of the USA, the People's Republic of China and the European Union continue to rely on emissions trading systems to reduce CO2 emissions. Against this background, this thesis examines four emissions trading systems in the USA. For this purpose, the legal and economic fundamentals of emissions trading are presented in detail. Subsequently, emissions trading systems are analyzed from an economic as well as a legal point of view based on criteria defined for this purpose and the results are embedded in the context of national and international law. For this purpose, the author conducts extensive basic research by processing the available emissions and trade data.


2020 ◽  
pp. 13-29
Author(s):  
Keith Sanger
Keyword(s):  

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 135-151
Author(s):  
J. Handrlica

The terms “atomic law” and “nuclear law” are regularly being (to a certain part as synonyms) used in both scientific and popular literature to refer to a body of legal norms, governing peaceful uses of nuclear energy and ionizing radiation, as provided by sources of international law (“international atomic law,” or “international nuclear law”), national legislation and a complex body of unbinding norms (soft law). Further, several other variations of these terms are also regularly used (such as “atomic energy law,” “nuclear energy law,” “international nuclear law,” “law of the atomic/nuclear energy,” etc.). This contribution aims to identify the origins of this terminological labyrinth and to deal with the perception of these terms in the legal scholarship. Further, this contribution deals with the recent perception of these terms in the legal science of major States, using nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. This article aims to clarify the existing terminology, which is to large extent being used in the literature without an appropriate explanation. The author pleads for a consequent use of the term “nuclear law” (droit nucléaire, yadernoe pravo, Nuklearrecht, derecho nuclear, diritto nucleare) and presents arguments for such conclusion.


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