Legitimacy

This collection brings together scholars of jurisprudence and political theory to probe the question of ‘legitimacy’. It offers discussions that interrogate the nature of legitimacy, how legitimacy is intertwined with notions of statehood, and how legitimacy reaches beyond the state into supranational institutions and international law. Chapter I considers benefit-based, merit-based, and will-based theories of state legitimacy. Chapter II examines the relationship between expertise and legitimate political authority. Chapter III attempts to make sense of John Rawls’s account of legitimacy in his later work. Chapter IV observes that state sovereignty persists, since no alternative is available, and that the success of the assortment of international organizations that challenge state sovereignty depends on their ability to attract loyalty. Chapter V argues that, to be complete, an account of a state’s legitimacy must evaluate not only its powers and its institutions, but also its officials. Chapter VI covers the rule of law and state legitimacy. Chapter VII considers the legitimation of the nation state in a post-national world. Chapter VIII contends that legitimacy beyond the state should be understood as a subject-conferred attribute of specific norms that generates no more than a duty to respect those norms. Chapter IX is a reply to critics of attempts to ground the legitimacy of suprastate institutions in constitutionalism. Chapter X examines Joseph Raz’s perfectionist liberalism. Chapter XI attempts to bring some order to debates about the legitimacy of international courts.

Author(s):  
Aleksey Vladimirovich Kondratyev ◽  
Svetlana Viktorovna Vorobyeva

We examine processes of desovereignization and the loss of a state political subjectivity. Noted the necessity of research and analysis of state sovereignty in the context of globalization and threats to international peace, which affect the degree of independence of the state and require the search for legal and political levers to protect the monolithic right of the state to independence, inviolability and non-interference in internal affairs. Has been made an attempt to search for detect and establish acceptable grounds for limiting state sovereignty. It is established that the voluntary restriction of sovereignty with the transfer of powers to supranational entities has constructive consequences in the form of good-neighborly cooperation, financial and economic support of states from international financial institutions, etc. In cases where, in order to establish the rule of law, protect human rights and freedoms and under other good intentions, the policy of the state is interfered with by both the organs of the international community and individual states that have endowed themselves with the right of “international arbiter”, fears for the stable development of national states increase. It is concluded that any limitation of sovereignty should not lead to interference in the national interests of the state and to the loss of political and legal independence.


AJIL Unbound ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 115 ◽  
pp. 389-393
Author(s):  
Benjamin J. Appel

Sara Mitchell and Andrew Owsiak's examination of the impact of UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and Article 287 declarations on the peaceful resolution of maritime disputes significantly advances the literature on the relationship between international law/international courts and maritime issues. To their credit, the authors employ a wide range of empirical tests in the article to provide readers with confidence in the empirical results. Nonetheless, there are some important limitations in their approach. Drawing on insights from the causal inference literature, I argue that Mitchell and Owsiak's empirical analyses suffer from two biases that both (1) raise concerns about the causal relationships identified in the article, and (2) suggest some important scope conditions in its empirical findings. I investigate the biases and propose suggestions for legal scholarship to produce more credible results.


Author(s):  
Olga Shpakovych ◽  
Sofia Penkovska

The article presents the result of theoretical and practical study of the relationship between state sovereignty and supranationalityof international organizations. In particular, it is determined that the phenomenon of supranationality of international organizations isderived from state sovereignty and acts as its external law. It has been shown that, in view of this, supranationality is limited becauseit arises through the exercise of sovereignty by states, and, accordingly, is limited by the amount of state sovereignty exercised by states.The relevant mechanism has also been studied on the example of the functioning of the European Union.Regarding the theoretical results, the following should be noted. First, it was proved that despite the different approaches of scho -lars to the understanding of supranationality, definitions of this concept and the separation of its features (properties), in each case,supranationality is a direct realization of state sovereignty. At the same time, the realization of state sovereignty in relation to such pro -perties of international organizations as supranational is primary, and supranationality in this case is derivative. In addition, the phenomenonof supranationality of international organizations due to the fact that it is derived is limited, because supranationality arisesthrough the exercise of sovereignty by states, and, accordingly, is limited by the amount of state sovereignty exercised by states. Thatis why when analyzing the relationship between the supranationality of international organizations and state sovereignty, one cannotconsider the priority of one of the two, because supranationality is in essence a manifestation of state sovereignty.Regarding the practical results, the author considers it appropriate to emphasize that both the regional international organization –the EU was studied, and, at the same time, it was proved that all theoretical provisions were reflected in practice, in particular, envisagedfunctions, goals and the tasks of the studied international organizations are limited in scope by the manifestation of sovereignty shownby states, similar to the regulations issued by organizations. Another indication that the state can exercise its sovereignty in any case isthat there is an effective and transparent procedure for leaving these organizations


Equity ◽  
2018 ◽  
pp. 189-196
Author(s):  
Irit Samet

In this concluding chapter I discuss some findings from the analysis of three of Equity’s fundamental doctrines we explored: fiduciary law, proprietary estoppel, and clean hands. I wish to highlight the traits they share and consider the relationship between the legal ideals of efficiency and Accountability Correspondence which they exemplify. Drawing up the strings of the last three chapters will also reveal how the courts use the category of conscionability to ensure that the value of the Rule of Law is sacrificed only in cases where it is necessary to maintain a healthy balance with Accountability Correspondence, in a way that also serves efficiency. Finally, I wish to show how the discussions of the specific doctrines support the argument that the fusion project as a general solution to the friction between law and Equity ought to be rejected.


2019 ◽  
pp. 78-102
Author(s):  
Gleider Hernández

This chapter assesses the relationship between international law and municipal law. Though international law deals primarily with inter-State relations, and municipal law addresses relationships between individuals or between individuals and the State, there are many overlapping issues on which both international and national regulation are necessary, such as the environment, trade, and human rights. Though the international legal order asserts its primacy over municipal legislation, it leaves to domestic constitutions the question of how international legal rules should be applied or enforced in municipal orders. Two conflicting doctrines define the relationship between international and municipal legal orders: dualism and monism. Dualism is usually understood as emphasizing the autonomy and distinct nature of municipal legal orders, in which the State is sovereign and supreme. Meanwhile, theories of monism conceive the relationship between international and municipal legal orders as more coherent and in fact unified, their validity deriving from one common source.


2009 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 531-545 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manuela Melandri

AbstractThis article explores the relationship between state sovereignty and the enforcement of international criminal law under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. This doing, it attempts to map out the ambivalent and sometimes contradictory roles that different typologies sovereignty play in advancing or hindering the enforcement of international criminal law. After a brief survey of the literature on the debate over 'international law vs. state sovereignty', the paper focuses on one specific aspect of the newly established ICC: the conditions for case admissibility. The analysis will show that the relationship between state sovereignty and international criminal justice is a dynamic and complex one, which needs to be understood and contextualized within the current system of international relations.


2005 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 699-729
Author(s):  
Jacques Zylberberg

This essay undertakes a review of national and international law to demonstrate that law is mainly an ideological and variable instrument of the State and of the United Nations, which is a by-product of the states. In this perspective, the author opposes the pragmatical ideology of resistance against the sovereign state to the juridical legitimation and the behaviour of the States who reluctantly have conceded some civil and political rights. Those rights are endangered by the growing bureaucratization of the state, the inflation of the juridical norms and rules, in addition to the permanent repressive characters of the State. The criticism of the contradiction and the variation of the rule of law when it relates to "human rights" is also extended to international law as well as to the international organizations.


2013 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-62 ◽  
Author(s):  
ANDREAS FOLLESDAL

AbstractThis paper explores subsidiarity as a constitutional principle in international law. Some authors have appealed to a principle of subsidiarity in order to defend the legitimacy of several striking features of international law, such as the centrality of state consent, the leeway in assessing state compliance and weak sanctions in its absence. The article presents such defences of state-centric aspects of international law by appeals to subsidiarity, and finds them wanting. Different interpretations of subsidiarity have strikingly different institutional implications regarding the objectives of the polity, the domain and role of subunits, and the allocation of authority to apply the principle of subsidiarity itself. Five different interpretations are explored, drawn from Althusius, the US federalists, Pope Leo XIII, and others. One upshot is that the principle of subsidiarity cannot provide normative legitimacy to the state-centric aspects of current international law on its own. It stands in need of substantial interpretation. The versions of subsidiarity that match current practices of public international law are questionable. Many crucial aspects of our legal order must be reconsidered – in particular the standing and scope of state sovereignty.


2015 ◽  
Vol 109 (2) ◽  
pp. 314-325 ◽  
Author(s):  
BLAISE BACHOFEN

In theSocial Contract, Rousseau declares that he has given up the idea of discussing the “external relations” of states. Yet numerous texts—including a recently reconstituted work about the law of war—show that he thought very seriously about the question of the nature and origin of war and of the possibility of making war subject to the rule of law. Rousseau, in contrast to Hobbes, links war's appearance to that of the sovereign states; the state of war is therefore the necessary result of international relations. Moreover, he considers the international law as chimerical. How can he then conceive a non-utopian theory of “just war”? My hypothesis is that his conception of the law of war is deduced from principles of internal political law and arises from pragmatic necessity. The state that discredits itself in its manner of waging war weakens itself while believing that it is reinforcing itself.


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