The International Legal Argument in Spinoza

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tilmann Altwicker
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
International Law ◽  
Ideal Theory ◽  
International Governance ◽  
Individual Freedom ◽  
Legal Argument ◽  
Sociological Study ◽  
Legal Thought ◽  
Early Contribution

In this chapter, it is argued that Spinoza is far from being a ‘denier’ of international law. Instead, it is shown that Spinoza offers a nuanced argument for why states are compelled to cooperate with one another in the form of international law. There are at least three lasting contributions to the theory of International Relations and international law: the exposition of a ‘non-ideal theory’ of International Relations, International Relations as part of a theory on the institutionalization of individual freedom, and the idea of precedence of rational international governance over independent governance. Spinoza gives an early contribution for a sociological study of international legal thought.

Is There a Discipline of IR? A Heterodox Perspective

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ralph Pettman
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
International Law ◽  
Academic Discipline ◽  
International Organization ◽  
Military Strategy ◽  
International Governance ◽  
Strategic Issues ◽  
The World ◽  
The Many ◽  
Peace And War

International relations (IR) is widely accepted as an academic discipline in its own right, despite the many subdisciplines which hold it together. These disparate subdisciplines, in fact, have come to define international relations as a whole. Establishing systematic matrices that describe and explain the discipline as a whole can show how the subdisciplines that constitute international relations have sufficient coherence to allow us to say that there is a discipline there. To look at the discipline otherwise would be viewing it as a mere collection of insights taken from other disciplines—in short, international relations could not be defined as a discipline at all. Such an argument forms a more heterodox view of international relations—one which does not attempt to engage with traditional debates about what constitutes the subject’s core as compared with its periphery. The “old” international relations was largely confined to politico-strategic issues to do with military strategy and diplomacy; that is, to discussions of peace and war, international organization, international governance, and international law. It was about states and the state system and little more. By contrast the “new” international relations is an all-inclusive account of how the world works. The underlying coherence of this account makes it possible to provide more comprehensive and more nuanced explanations of international relations.

Niccolò Machiavelli’s International Legal Thought: Culture, Contingency, and Construction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Roth-Isigkeit
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
International Law ◽  
Social Epistemology ◽  
Theoretical Understanding ◽  
Legal Thought ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Critical Understanding ◽  
Political Communities ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter suggests a progressive reading of Machiavelli, relying on the unity of his national and international thought. It argues that his focus on the unification of political communities through the medium of law allows for a sophisticated theoretical understanding of international law. The chapter starts with a discussion of the relationship of his biographical events and his social epistemology. It proceeds with the relationship of Machiavelli’s concept of law as a governance tool to the area of morality and normativity. Ultimately, the focus lies on his understanding of imperialism and international relations in order to shape a novel understanding of Machiavelli that depicts him as a reasonable historical starting point for a modern, post-critical understanding of international law.

PENERAPAN PRINSIP PERSONA NON GRATA TERHADAP DUTA BESAR DITINJAU DARI PERSPEKTIF HUKUM INTERNASIONAL (STUDI KASUS PENGANIAYAAN TKI OLEH DUTA BESAR ARAB SAUDI DI JERMAN)

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 60-71
Author(s):  
Devi Yusvitasari
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
International Law ◽  
Recipient Country ◽  
Secondary Data ◽  
Vienna Convention ◽  
Diplomatic Relations ◽  
National Interests ◽  
The World ◽  
Diplomatic Immunity ◽  
The Right

A country needs to make contact with each other based on the national interests of each country related to each other, including among others economic, social, cultural, legal, political, and so on. With constant and continuous association between the nations of the world, it is one of the conditions for the existence of the international community. One form of cooperation between countries in the world is in the form of international relations by placing diplomatic representation in various countries. These representatives have diplomatic immunity and diplomatic immunity privileges that are in accordance with the jurisdiction of the recipient country and civil and criminal immunity for witnesses. The writing of the article entitled "The Application of the Principle of Non-Grata Persona to the Ambassador Judging from the Perspective of International Law" describes how the law on the abuse of diplomatic immunity, how a country's actions against abuse of diplomatic immunity and how to analyze a case of abuse of diplomatic immunity. To answer the problem used normative juridical methods through the use of secondary data, such as books, laws, and research results related to this research topic. Based on the results of the study explained that cases of violations of diplomatic relations related to the personal immunity of diplomatic officials such as cases such as cases of persecution by the Ambassador of Saudi Arabia to Indonesian Workers in Germany are of serious concern. The existence of diplomatic immunity is considered as protection so that perpetrators are not punished. Actions against the abuse of recipient countries of diplomatic immunity may expel or non-grata persona to diplomatic officials, which is stipulated in the Vienna Convention in 1961, because of the right of immunity attached to each diplomatic representative.

Frieden durch Recht und Öffentlichkeit: Die Hoffnungen und Verwirrungen der ersten Utilitaristen

2020 ◽  
Vol 74 (2) ◽  
pp. 228-252
Author(s):  
Frédéric Rimoux
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
International Relations ◽  
World Peace ◽  
Individual Freedom ◽  
Jeremy Bentham ◽  
Collective Security ◽  
War And Peace ◽  
Political Realism ◽  
International Thought

The international thought of the early utilitarian thinkers Jeremy Bentham and James Mill remains little known and largely misunderstood. Most commentators give them a superficial appreciation or criticize their supposed naivety, in both cases mostly assuming that Mill borrowed his thoughts from Bentham's writings alone. This questionable reception overlooks some essential aspects of Bentham's and Mill's extensive reflections on war and peace, in particular their constant effort to overcome the tension between individual freedom and collective security. In reality, the fertile dialogue between the two thinkers gradually crystallized into an independent utilitarian peace theory centered on law and public opinion as instruments of an ambitious reform of international relations according to the principle of utility. They managed to elaborate a fragile synthesis between liberal principles and considerations of political realism, which grants their utilitarian peace theory a singular place in the historical efforts to systematically define the conditions of world peace.

International Legal Thought

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Kleinlein
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
Critical Potential ◽  
Self Reflection ◽  
Legal Thought ◽  
History Of ◽  
Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries

This contribution reflects on the role of tradition-building in international law, the implications of the recent ‘turn to history’ and the ‘presentisms’ discernible in the history of international legal thought. It first analyses how international legal thought created its own tradition in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. These projects of establishing a tradition implied a considerable amount of what historians would reject as ‘presentism’. Remarkably, critical scholars of our day and age who unsettled celebratory histories of international law and unveiled ‘colonial origins’ of international law were also criticized for committing the ‘sin of anachronism’. This contribution therefore examines the basis of this critique and defends ‘presentism’ in international legal thought. However, the ‘paradox of instrumentalism’ remains: The ‘better’ historical analysis becomes, the more it loses its critical potential for current international law. At best, the turn to history activates a potential of disciplinary self-reflection.

Hobbes among the Classic Jurists

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Boucher
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
International Law ◽  
The State ◽  
Law Of Nature ◽  
Law Of Nations ◽  
Complete Identification ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Hedley Bull ◽  
Hans Morgenthau

The classic foundational status that Hobbes has been afforded by contemporary international relations theorists is largely the work of Hans Morgenthau, Martin Wight, and Hedley Bull. They were not unaware that they were to some extent creating a convenient fiction, an emblematic realist, a shorthand for all of the features encapsulated in the term. The detachment of international law from the law of nature by nineteenth-century positivists opened Hobbes up, even among international jurists, to be portrayed as almost exclusively a mechanistic theorist of absolute state sovereignty. If we are to endow him with a foundational place at all it is not because he was an uncompromising realist equating might with right, on the analogy of the state of nature, but instead to his complete identification of natural law with the law of nations. It was simply a matter of subject that distinguished them, the individual and the state.

Cardinal Richelieu between Vattel and Machiavelli

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony Carty
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
International Law ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
Historical Research ◽  
Practical Implementation ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
God's Will ◽  
Legal Thought ◽  
Rule Of Reason

The view that no form of international law existed in seventeenth-century France, and that this time was a part of ‘prehistory’, and thus irrelevant for international legal thought today is challenged. In addition, the traditional claim of Richelieu to be an admirer of Machiavelli and his Ragion di Stato doctrine to the detriment of the aim of concluding treaties and keeping them (as sacred), is refuted by careful historical research. In Richelieu’s thinking, there is a role for law to play but it is law as justice, law in the classical natural law tradition. Those who rule are subject to the rule of law as justice, the rule of God, or the rule of reason. In Richelieu’s world, kings and ministers are rational instruments of the practical implementation of God’s will on earth.

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