The International Rule of Law in Light of Legitimacy Claims

2019 ◽  
pp. 277-301 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thilo Marauhn
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
International Law ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
A Value ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
International Rule

The chapter looks at legitimacy claims, contrasting them with theories of legitimacy and discussing how such claims may contribute to the ‘rise or decline’ of the international rule of law. The author studies examples from the areas of the ius ad bellum and the ius in bello. He concludes that legitimacy considerations will not allow a proper assessment of ‘rise or decline’ in themselves. Rather it is important to first establish a realistic perspective on what international law can achieve at all. In contrast to expectations that have been raised in particular after the end of the Cold War by many scholars, international law has not become a value-based constitutional arrangement of its constitutive entities, whether these are states or individuals.

The International Rule of Law—Rise or Decline?—Approaching Current Foundational Challenges

2019 ◽  
pp. 3-30
Author(s):  
Heike Krieger ◽  
Georg Nolte
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Cold War ◽  
International Law ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Preliminary Assessment ◽  
Research Project ◽  
Public International Law ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
International Rule

The chapter undertakes a preliminary assessment of current developments of international law for the purpose of mapping the ground for a larger research project. The research project pursues the goal of determining whether public international law, as it has developed since the end of the Cold War, is continuing its progressive move towards a more human-rights- and multi-actor-oriented order, or whether we are seeing a renewed emphasis of more classical elements of international law. In this context the term ‘international rule of law’ is chosen to designate the more recent and ‘thicker’ understanding of international law. The chapter discusses how it can be determined whether this form of international law continues to unfold, and whether we are witnessing challenges to this order which could give rise to more fundamental reassessments.

Is there room for international law in realpolitik?: accounting for the US ‘attitude’ towards international law

2003 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-88 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shirley V. Scott
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Cold War ◽  
International Law ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
The United States ◽  
World War ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
The Us ◽  
International Rule

The United States has in recent years come under considerable criticism for its apparently cynical attitude towards international law. While the US administration refers often to the importance of the international rule of law it appears unwilling to itself be bound by that law. While the US took the lead in the post World War II years in establishing international law and institutions it has in recent years appeared unwilling to give those same institutions its full support. This article begins by examining a range of explanations for the seemingly undesirable US attitude towards international law. Dismissing each as inadequate on its own, the article demonstrates how what often appear to be contradictory aspects of the United States' relationship with international law can in fact be reconciled through the application to United States' behaviour of the basic tenets of classic modern realism as it pertains to the conduct of foreign policy. This is surprising since international law and realpolitik are more often contrasted. The United States' ‘attitude’ towards international law is better explained not as a post-Cold War anomaly but as having been an integral aspect of the rise of the United States to sole superpower status.

On the Road to Vienna

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kai Bruns
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
International Law ◽  
The Road ◽  
Progressive Development ◽  
History Of ◽  
On The Road ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
International Law Commission ◽  
Law Commission

This chapter focuses on the negotiations that preceded the 1961 Vienna Conference (which led to the conclusion of the VCDR). The author challenges the view that the successful codification was an obvious step and refers in this regard to a history of intense negotiation which spanned fifteen years. With particular reference to the International Law Commission (ILC), the chapter explores the difficult task faced by ILC members to strike a balance between the codification of existing practice and progressive development of diplomatic law. It reaches the finding that the ILC negotiations were crucial for the success of the Conference, but notes also that certain States supported a less-binding form of codification. The chapter also underlines the fact that many issues that had caused friction between the Cold War parties were settled during the preparatory meetings and remained largely untouched during the 1961 negotiations.

Juggling Several Balls at Once

2021 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 493-516
Author(s):  
Grace Mueller ◽  
Paul F. Diehl ◽  
Daniel Druckman
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
Peace Operations ◽  
Early Failure ◽  
Republic Of The Congo ◽  
The Cold War

Abstract Peacekeeping during the Cold War was primarily, and in some cases exclusively, charged with monitoring cease-fires. This changed significantly, as peace operations evolved to include other missions (e.g., rule of law, election supervision), many under the rubric of peacebuilding. What is lacking is consideration of how the different missions affect one another, simultaneously and in sequences. This study addresses that gap by looking at the interconnectedness of missions and their success in the UN Organization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUC), which was mandated to perform eight different missions over a decade. The article examines success or failure in each of those missions and how they relate to one another guided by theoretical logics based on the “security first” hypothesis and mission compatibility expectations. Early failure to stem the violence had negative downstream consequences for later peacebuilding missions. Nevertheless, MONUC’s election supervision mission was successful.

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.

The Rise and Decline of the International Rule of Law and the Job of Scholars

2019 ◽  
pp. 56-65
Author(s):  
Anne Peters
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
John Rawls ◽  
Political Climate ◽  
Scholarly Writing ◽  
Economic Climate ◽  
International Scholarship ◽  
Research Questions ◽  
Object Of Study ◽  
International Rule

International law feeds on preconditions which it cannot guarantee itself. International scholarship, too, must come to grips with pre-conditions and existing parameters over which it has no control itself. But such scholarship must not ‘succumb’ to these factual and ideational realities by adapting its methods and findings to any given political, social, and economic climate. It is the job of international legal scholars to produce ideas in a spirit of realist utopianism (John Rawls). Depending on the existing parameters, these ideas are apt to shape attitudes and actions, or not. Such scholarship also needs to distance itself from its object of study in order not to lose its capacity to criticize the law and the practice. How far exactly scholarly writing should transcend or keep aloof from the prevailing political climate and from concerns of feasibility depends on the research questions under discussion and is a matter of judgment. The style of scholarship suggested here is illustrated by the work of three eminent scholars whose careers continued through different political eras more or less favourable to the international rule of law: Hersch Lauterpacht, Antonio Cassese, and Josef Kunz.

a declaration on friendly relations

2021 ◽  
pp. 147-184
Author(s):  
Gerry Simpson
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
International Law ◽  
Cuban Missile Crisis ◽  
John Adams ◽  
Fidel Castro ◽  
Nikita Khrushchev ◽  
Literary Figure ◽  
The Cold War

This chapter reconstructs, in a descriptive and aspirational mode, lawful friendship through an encounter between the literary figure of ‘the friend’ and an international law of friendly and unfriendly relations. It begins with a gesture of elegiac friendship before locating friendship in an international law of enemies, criminals, pirates and neutrals. It finishes by elaborating a politics of international legal friendship and makes a plea for a tentative, careful friendliness suggested by friendships found in Montaigne, Nietzsche and Derrida, and in three moments of friendship set in the Cold War: one literary (the depiction of friendship in John Adams’ opera, Nixon in China), one an unlikely performance of anti-imperial friendly relations (the friendship between Nehru and Tito, begun in Belgrade) and one epistolary (a letter sent by Nikita Khrushchev to Fidel Castro in the aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis). Each represents in its rudimentary way a ‘lawful friendship’, a declaration on friendly relations.

Reinterpretation or Contestation of International Law in Cyberspace?

2019 ◽  
Vol 52 (3) ◽  
pp. 295-326 ◽  
Author(s):  
François Delerue
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
United Nations ◽  
International Law ◽  
International Security ◽  
Comprehensive Analysis ◽  
Cyber Threats ◽  
The Third ◽  
Key Points ◽  
The Cold War

Since the end of the Cold War, international law has increasingly been challenged by states and other actors. Specific norms have also been challenged in their application by new realities and obstacles. This article focuses on these challenges as they arise from the development of cyberspace and cyber operations, and offers an overview of the main questions arising with regard to the application of international law to cyber operations. By analysing the application of the existing norms of international law to cyber operations as well as identifying their limits, the article offers an accurate lens through which to study the contestation or process of reinterpretation of some norms of international law. The objective of the article is not to deliver a comprehensive analysis of how the norms of international law apply to cyber operations but to provide an overview of the key points and issues linked to the applicability and application of the norms as well as elements of contextualisation, notably after the failure of the 2016–17 United Nations Group of Governmental Experts on Developments in the Field of Information and Telecommunications in the Context of International Security. The article comprises three parts. The first part focuses on the applicability of international law to cyber operations. The second part identifies challenges that affect the applicability and application of international law in general, while the third part analyses challenges that affect specific norms of international law, highlighting their limits in dealing with cyber threats.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document