International Law and International Justice

Author(s):  
Hilary Charlesworth

This chapter investigates the relationship between the concepts of international justice and international law. It suggests that the idea of an international rule of law is constructed on procedural, rather than substantive, accounts of justice. Against the background of two opposing tendencies in the international legal order that influence ideas of international justice, namely the Westphalian and UN Charter accounts, the chapter considers various attempts to incorporate notions of justice in the international legal order. Examples are drawn from the 1970s campaign for a New International Economic Order at the UN, from international adjudication, from feminist campaigns, and from the work of international legal scholars such as Thomas Franck and Steven Ratner. The chapter argues that the concept of international justice has become associated largely with international criminal law, and indicates the limitations of this linkage.

Author(s):  
Charles Chernor Jalloh ◽  
Ilias Bantekas

Africa has been at the forefront of contemporary global efforts towards ensuring greater accountability for international crimes. But the continent’s early embrace of international criminal justice seems to have taken a new turn with the recent pushback from some African states claiming that the emerging system of international criminal law represents a new form of imperialism masquerading as international rule of law. This work analyses the relationship and tensions between the International Criminal Court (ICC) and Africa. It traces the origins of the confrontation between African governments, acting individually or within the framework of the African Union, and the permanent Hague-based ICC. Leading commentators offer valuable insights on the core legal and political issues that have bedevilled the relationship between the two sides and expose the uneasy interaction between international law and international politics.


Author(s):  
George P. Fletcher

This introductory chapter provides an overview of the basic concepts of international criminal law. To understand the international legal order in the field of criminal law, one needs to ask three elementary questions. What is international law? What is criminal law? And what happens to these two fields when they are joined together? International law is about the legal obligations that arise between and among states. Meanwhile, the concepts of crime and criminal law are more complex than meets the eye. The chapter then considers the Dogmatik of international criminal law and the relevance of the law of war. The most significant contribution of the Dogmatik for criminal law was the invention of the tripartite system, namely the three levels of analysis that determine the structure of every criminal offense.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas S. Eder

China aims to become a “leader country” in international law that “guides” the international legal order. Delivering the first comprehensive analysis of case law and Chinese academic debates from 2002 to 2018, this book shows that gradually increased engagement with international adjudication is part of a broad effort to consolidate China’s economic and political gains, and regain great power status. It covers trade, investment, territorial and law of the sea matters – including the South China Sea disputes – and delineates a decades-long process between caution and ambition. Both in debate patterns and in actual engagement, this book finds remarkable similarities in all covered fields of law, merely the timetables differ.


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.


Author(s):  
Martin Dixon ◽  
Robert McCorquodale ◽  
Sarah Williams

Cases and Materials on International Law, a topical companion for study placing international law directly in the context of contemporary debate, offers broad coverage of international law, and is suitable for use alongside a range of course structures and teaching styles. The book provides readers with a comprehensive selection of case law extracts for their studies. Extracts have been chosen from a wide range of historical and contemporary cases to illustrate the reasoning processes of the courts and to show how legal principles are developed. The book contains the essential cases and materials needed in order to understand and analyse the international legal order, providing notes on selected extracts to explain the complexities of the law. The sixth edition provides expanded coverage of topical areas such as: the use of force in Iraq and Syria and the threat of terrorism; international criminal law and the International Criminal Court; and developments in human rights and international environmental law. The new edition considers the perspectives of non-western and feminist scholars. It also updates core areas of international law, including sovereignty over territory and judicial sovereignty, the law of the sea, state responsibility, international legal personality and peaceful settlement.


2012 ◽  
Vol 40 (6) ◽  
pp. 688-713 ◽  
Author(s):  
Seyla Benhabib

Carl Schmitt’s critique of liberalism has gained increasing influence in the last few decades. This article focuses on Schmitt’s analysis of international law in The Nomos of the Earth, in order to uncover the reasons for his appeal as a critic not only of liberalism but of American hegemonic aspirations as well. Schmitt saw the international legal order that developed after World War I, and particularly the “criminalization of aggressive war,” as a smokescreen to hide U.S. aspirations to world dominance. By focusing on Schmitt’s critique of Kant’s concept of the “unjust enemy,” the article shows the limits of Schmitt’s views and concludes that Schmitt, as well as left critics of U.S. hegemony, misconstrue the relation between international law and democratic sovereignty as a model of top–down domination. As conflictual as the relationship between international norms and democratic sovereignty can be at times, this needs to be interpreted as one of mediation and not domination.


2009 ◽  
Vol 37 (6) ◽  
pp. 757-806 ◽  
Author(s):  
David M. Crowe

War crimes and genocide are as old as history itself. So are regulations and laws that protect individuals during time of war, whether they be combatants or civilians. The Chinese philosopher Sun Tzu wrote in the fifth century BCE that it was important to treat “captured soldiers well in order to nurture them [for our use]. This is referred to as ‘conquering the enemy and growing stronger.'” Yet several centuries later, Qin Shi Huangdi, China's first emperor, committed horrible atrocities during his military campaigns to unite China. Eric Yong-Joon Lee adds that it should be remembered that the Qin emperor also created that country's “first managed international legal order.” But, according to Robert Cryer, it was the West, not Asia, that created the world's first “international criminal law regime.” This “regime,” R. P. Anand argues, was, in many ways, a form of“Victor's Justice“ or “ruler's law,” since it was forced on Asia and Africa by the West in the nineteenth century.


Author(s):  
Astrid Kjeldgaard-Pedersen

Chapter 2 identifies and explains the four theoretical conceptions of international legal personality, which will be tested against historical and existing norms of positive international law in Chapters 3–8. With particular focus on the role attributed to the individual as the ultimate subject of international law, the examination will concentrate on selected scholars’ conclusions on the criteria for, and the consequences of acquiring, international legal personality. Moreover, it will address the way in which proponents of the various conceptions perceive the relationship between the international legal order and national legal order(s) and the role of the concept of international legal personality in that regard. Given that a primary aim of the book is to ascertain the position of the individual as a matter of international lex lata, particular attention is given to the two main conceptions of international legal personality, which both claim to be positivist.


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