Afghanistan

2019 ◽  
pp. 674-700
Author(s):  
Veronica L. Taylor
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
United Nations ◽  
International Law ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Legal History ◽  
Legal Institutions ◽  
Legal Norms ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
International Rule ◽  
Conflict Period

This chapter addresses international law in Afghanistan. States where the ‘post-conflict’ period is, in fact, a series of continuing sub-national conflicts, are often coded as ‘failed’ or ‘fragile’ and are also criticized as failing in their embrace of international law. In the case of Afghanistan, such ‘discourses of deficiency’ also erase some important legal history. For most of its history, Afghanistan has been contingent as a Westphalian state. This means that it has also had a fluid relationship with the institutions and norms of international law, including the normative discourse and practice of the international rule of law. Although Afghanistan has been a member of the United Nations since 1946, and thus a contributor to international law in the twentieth century, it is seen more as a subject of international law. After considering these issues, the chapter then highlights the complexity of Afghan’s location within, as well as its relationship with, international law, international legal institutions, and international legal norms.

Stakeholder Theory and Justice Issues: The Leap from Business Management to Contemporary International Law

2010 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 143-180
Author(s):  
Bronik Matwijkiw ◽  
Anja Matwijkiw
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
International Law ◽  
Stakeholder Theory ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Transitional Justice ◽  
Business Management ◽  
Secretary General ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
The United Nations

AbstractIn this article, the two authors examine the leap from business management to contemporary international law in the context of stakeholder theory. Because stakeholder theory was developed for business management, they provide a thorough account of the original framework. Furthermore, to illustrate the theory's application as a recently adopted parameter for the United Nations, they use former Secretary-General Kofi Atta Annan's 2004-report to the Security Council, "The Rule of Law and Transitional Justice in Conflict and Post-Conflict Societies". Proceeding on the hypothesis that while all premises ultimately match traditional positions in general jurisprudence, it appears that stakeholder theory nevertheless forces the United Nations to take sides in an unprecedented manner, especially pertaining to rights-typology and the credentials-checking for this. Finally, some of the most important implications are distilled as part of an attempt to formulate a few recommendations for United Nations justice managers and administrators.

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.

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.

A Keen Observer of the International Rule of Law? International Law in China's Voting Behaviour and Argumentation in the United Nations Security Council

2013 ◽  
Vol 26 (4) ◽  
pp. 875-907 ◽  
Author(s):  
PHIL C. W. CHAN
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
International Law ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Security Council ◽  
United Nations Security Council ◽  
Voting Behaviour ◽  
International Legal Order ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
International Rule ◽  
Keen Observer

AbstractGiven the centrality of law in the creation, decision-making, and impact of the United Nations Security Council, the deliberative discourses among Security Council Members, and the necessity for China to articulate its reasons publicly for its actions within the Security Council, the roles that China plays within the Security Council illuminate and clarify its approaches to the current international legal order. This article explains how law serves as a constitutional–normative framework within which the Security Council must function, followed by a discussion of how the Security Council in turn may serve as a locus of deliberative discourses that delineate, influence, and constrain its members’ state behaviours. It challenges the view that law plays a limited role on matters of international security by exploring China's voting behaviour in the Security Council and the arguments that it has proffered. It also discusses how China may respond to a draft Security Council resolution aimed at its conduct other than simply by vetoing it, and how it has taken a proactive role in the maintenance of international peace and security through the Security Council.

Is Compliance an Indicator for the State of International Law?

2019 ◽  
pp. 183-203
Author(s):  
Jeffrey L Dunoff
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
The State ◽  
Legal Norms ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
International Rule

This chapter questions the utility of using compliance—understood as behaviour consistent with applicable rules of international law—as a direct indicator for the state of international law. Instead it develops a claim that, across many domains, contemporary international law faces a ‘compliance trilemma’. In many instances, the actors who wish to construct an international rule of law pursue the goals of (1) widespread participation, (2) ambitious legal norms, and (3) high rates of compliance. However, it is often possible to achieve, at most, two of these goals, giving rise to the Trilemma. Hence, compliance remains an important subject of study because efforts to construct an international rule of law confront inescapable trade-offs between pursuit of heightened compliance and other desirable outcomes, such as increased participation and increased depth of international legal norms.

The International Rule of Law

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Global Justice ◽  
Structural Changes ◽  
Environmental Law ◽  
World Order ◽  
Legal Norms ◽  
The Impact ◽  
International Rule

The authors examine the role of international law in a changing global order. Can we, under the current significantly changing conditions, still observe an increasing juridification of international relations based on a universal understanding of values, or are we, to the contrary, rather facing a tendency towards an informalization or a reformalization of international law, or even an erosion of international legal norms? Would it be appropriate to revisit classical elements of international law in order to react to structural changes, which may give rise to a more polycentric or non-polar world order? Or are we simply observing a slump in the development towards an international rule of law based on a universal understanding of values? In eleven chapters and eleven comments, distinguished scholars reflect on how to approach these questions from historical, system-oriented and actor-centered perspectives. The contributions engage with the rise of European international law since the 17th century, the decay of the international rule of law, compliance as an indicator for the state of international law, international law and informal law-making in times of populism, the rule of environmental law and complex problems, human rights in Europe in a hostile environment, the influence of the BRICS states on international law, the impact of non-state actors on international law, international law’s contribution to global justice, the contestation of value-based norms and the international rule of law in light of legitimacy claims.

scholarly journals 9/11 as False Flag: Why International Law Must Dare to Care

2017 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 371-392 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amy Baker Benjamin
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
United Nations ◽  
International Law ◽  
The United States ◽  
September 11 ◽  
African History ◽  
The Us ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
International War

At the heart of contemporary international law lies a paradox: the attacks on the United States of September 11, 2001 have justified 16 years of international war, yet the official international community, embodied principally in the United Nations, has failed to question or even scrutinise the US government's account of those attacks. Despite the emergence of an impressive and serious body of literature that impugns the official account and even suggests that 9/11 may have been a classic (if unprecedentedly monstrous) false-flag attack, international statesmen, following the lead of scholars, have been reluctant to wade into what appears to be a very real controversy. African nations are no strangers to the concept of the false flag tactic, and to its use historically in the pursuit of illegitimate geopolitical aims and interests. This article draws on recent African history in this regard, as well as on deeper twentieth-century European and American history, to lay a foundation for entertaining the possibility of 9/11-as-false-flag. This article then argues that the United Nations should seek to fulfil its core and incontrovertible ‘jury’ function of determining the existence of inter-state aggression in order to exercise a long-overdue oversight of the official 9/11 narrative.

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?.

Introduction

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Ian Hurd
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Social Practice ◽  
Good Governance ◽  
World Politics ◽  
International Conflicts ◽  
Legal Forms ◽  
The One ◽  
International Rule

This introductory chapter provides an overview of the politics of the international rule of law. The big debates in world politics today are inseparable from international law. Controversy over what is and is not legal is standard fare in international conflicts, and commitment to rule of law is presumed a marker of good governance. Yet the politics of the international rule of law are not so simple and are rarely investigated directly. This book shows that international law is properly seen not as a set of rules external to and constraining of state power but rather as a social practice in which states and others engage. They put the political power of international law to work in the pursuit of their goals and interests. Indeed, governments use international law to explain and justify their choices. This is both constraining and permissive. On the one hand, states must fit their preferences into legal forms. On the other hand, they are empowered when they can show their choices to be lawful. Thus, international law makes it easier for states to do some things (those that can be presented as lawful) and harder to do others (those that appear to be unlawful). The book then looks at how the concept of international law is used in world politics and to what ends.

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