Non-State Actor Participation in International Law and the Pretense of Exclusion

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jordan J. Paust
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
State Actor

Revisiting the expansion thesis: international society and the role of the Dutch East India company as a merchant empire

2020 ◽  
Vol 26 (4) ◽  
pp. 1230-1248
Author(s):  
Kevin Blachford
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
International Society ◽  
East India Company ◽  
Western World ◽  
Dutch East India Company ◽  
Critical Approach ◽  
Sovereign Equality ◽  
State Actor ◽  
Merchant Empires

This paper breaks new ground by looking at the role played by merchant empires, such as the Dutch East India Company (VOC), in shaping European interactions with the non-Western world. It offers a critique of the English School’s state-centric narrative of the expansion of international society by looking to how the VOC and its expansion in Asia influenced developments within Europe. As a non-state actor, the VOC developed networks of trade and power, which were intertwined with the Dutch struggle against Iberian hegemony. As this paper shows, the development of international law, sovereign equality and European international society needs to be understood as being constituted through these colonial encounters. Looking to the VOC as a merchant empire presents a more nuanced approach to the expansion narrative that recognises that states, empires and early modern companies developed in a co-evolutionary manner. This critical approach calls for the recognition of international society as an ongoing process formed by the contestation of hybrid cultures.

scholarly journals Prawne implikacje wybranych elementów terminu „wojna hybrydowa”

2019 ◽  
pp. 125-147
Author(s):  
Paweł Ochmann
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Hybrid Methods ◽  
Public Law ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Legal Term ◽  
Proxy War ◽  
State Actor ◽  
Hybrid War ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Right

The term ‘hybrid war’ is not a legal term. It belongs to the terminology and concepts used in the studies on international relationships. Due to its popularization in mass media it has recently started to be used in new contexts. The purpose of the article is to ascertain the precise meaning of the term, and to determine the legal implica­tions which a particular understanding of it may have in international public law. Certain understandings or interpretations of a given term determine its legal consequences and allow the assessment of their implications from the point of view of international law. Therefore in the first part of the article, a review and an examination of different ways of understanding the term ‘hybrid war’ have been conducted. Although the definitions that had been analyzed are noteworthy and they emphasize some aspects of the ‘hybrid war,’ they lack a definition of the term that would take into consideration all the dimensions of the issue of a hybrid war. Thus the attempt taken by the author to propose his own definition, aggregating all observations and insights made by the international relations experts so far, and enumerating the distinctive characteristics of hybrid wars. After that, some typical el­ements of a hybrid war are analyzed from the point of view of international public law. The paper investigates the possibility of qualifying hybrid methods as the ‘use of force,’ an ‘aggression’ and an ‘armed attack’ within the meaning of the United Nations Charter. It also examines the admissibility of a counter-attack within the framework of the right to self- defence. The issue raises many doubts particularly with regard to activities from below the threshold of war that are distinctive char­acteristics of a hybrid war. The legal implications of the use of a non-state actor to conduct an armed activity under international law were also raised, being referred to as proxy war.

Part I International Law and Global Security, Ch.6 Accidently Insecure

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hough Peter
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Change ◽  
Natural Disasters ◽  
International Law ◽  
Real World ◽  
Human Security ◽  
Power Politics ◽  
Law And Politics ◽  
Workplace Accidents ◽  
The World ◽  
State Actor

This chapter investigates why accidents are rarely construed as matters of security and considers the case for giving greater recognition to accidental insecurity in international law and politics. Accidents are far removed from the conventional conceptualization of security politics and yet represent a much bigger threat to most people’s lives than those most typical security concerns: war and terrorism. The average citizen of the world is actually far less threatened by military action from another State or a foreign non-State actor than they are in ways rarely labelled as matters of security. The chapter looks at transport accidents, structural accidents, workplace accidents, and personal accidents. Since the 1990s, both academic and ‘real world’ political discourse has increasingly granted security status to non-military issues in ‘widening’ and ‘deepening’ the agenda of international political priorities. However, security ‘wideners’ and even many human security advocates, while acknowledging that diseases, crime, environmental change, and natural disasters can sometimes be matters of security, are often still reluctant to grant this status to accidents. This reluctance seems to boil down to two objections: (i) there are no military or power politics dimensions inherent in accidents; (ii) accidents are not deliberate attacks on countries or people.

Jus Cogens: A Complex Case of Constitutional Reasoning in International Law

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 249-262
Author(s):  
Miodrag Jovanović
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Legal Order ◽  
Complex Case ◽  
Vienna Convention ◽  
International Governance ◽  
Teleological Argument ◽  
International Legal Order ◽  
State Actor ◽  
Jus Cogens ◽  
Peremptory Norms

Article 53 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties famously introduced a special class of international legal rules - jus cogens norms - without specifying its content. The paper proceeds by adopting the heuristic framework of constitutionalization of international law, arguing that jus cogens norms contribute to at least two constitutionalist functions - that of limiting the international governance and hierarchizing international legal order. Hence, it is possible to argue that jus cogens reasoning is a specific type of constitutional reasoning. Despite stipulated formal qualities of jus cogens norms, in trying to establish their content state actors are in the situation similar to constitutional adjudicators dealing with underdetermined legal content of a constitutional text. What directs the process of jus cogens reasoning is, thus, the particular nature of the subject-matter with which those norms deal. The last part of the paper provides the analytical reconstruction of the jus cogens constitutional reasoning, focusing on the process of ascertainment, which is to be taken by the community of states. It is argued that what ascertainment requires is, inter alia, resorting to a unique interpretative tool - reverse teleological argument - with the use of which the state actor can extract from the fundamental values of international legal order a class of peremptory norms of international law.

Waging War against Non-State Actors: The Contemporary Debate on the Prohibition of Force

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Iman Ahmed
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Effective Means ◽  
Use Of Force ◽  
Government Officials ◽  
Contemporary Debate ◽  
State Practice ◽  
State Actor ◽  
State Actors ◽  
Legal Understanding ◽  
Failing States

Recent events have triggered scholarship arguing that international law should embrace the widespread state practice of using force against violent non-state actors such as terrorists. The evolution of state practice since 9/11 suggests an alternate interpretation of Article 2(4) and Article 51 of the UN charter, per treaty mechanisms. Specifically, academics and government officials have argued that the threat posed by terrorism necessitates lowering the state responsibility threshold. Doing so would make states hosting terrorists liable for violence undertaken from within their territory, giving aggrieved nations a license to intervene militarily. This essay argues that the traditional legal understanding of Article 2(4) and 51, which prohibit the use of force except in self-defence and then only against state actors, should be upheld, as war is not an effective means of eliminating non-state actor violence. Rather, nations need to address non-state actor violence by focusing on economic and social measures which foster development in failing States, as addressing civilian grievances is the most effective way to combat and deter terrorism.

Monitoring armed non-state actor compliance with humanitarian norms: a look at international mechanisms and the Geneva Call Deed of Commitment

2011 ◽  
Vol 93 (883) ◽  
pp. 673-706 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pascal Bongard ◽  
Jonathan Somer
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Armed Conflicts ◽  
Governmental Organization ◽  
The Past ◽  
State Actor ◽  
State Actors ◽  
Internal Armed Conflicts ◽  
Multilateral Treaties

AbstractArmed non-state actors are involved in most armed conflicts today, yet international law provides few mechanisms to ensure that they comply with humanitarian norms applicable to them. In particular, monitoring and verification mechanisms that address the conduct of armed non-state actors rarely appear in multilateral treaties, and, even when they do, are weak and not applied in practice. Over the past few years, a number of alternative mechanisms have been developed to better monitor respect of humanitarian norms during internal armed conflicts and verify allegations of violations. This article examines the strength of these various mechanisms and then focuses on the Deed of Commitment, an innovative instrument developed by the Swiss-based non-governmental organization Geneva Call, to hold armed non-state actors accountable. Experience with the Deed of Commitment on the prohibition of anti-personnel mines shows that these alternative mechanisms can be effective in ensuring better compliance with at least some humanitarian norms.

Paradoxes of Visibility and Preservation: Cultural Heritage Law and the Making of the City as an International Legal Category

2021 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-57
Author(s):  
Lucas Lixinski
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Community Involvement ◽  
Urban Landscape ◽  
Local Communities ◽  
Democratic Deficit ◽  
Central Question ◽  
Global Public Goods ◽  
State Actor ◽  
Governance Processes ◽  
The City

The push for cities to be a part of international legal governance processes is tied to the promise of bridging international law’s democratic deficit. However, the exercise of cities’ personality in international law can end up replicating many of the same democratic deficits with which international law is usually charged. Therefore, cities as agents may be an unsatisfactory way of addressing international law’s democratic deficits. Instead, cities as objects can raise the visibility of cities and the local communities that live therein, but without giving agency to a State actor. This visibility can then pave the way for communities themselves to be directly involved in international legal governance processes. This article uses the example of international heritage law, where cities are very significantly represented in international heritage lists and even a specific instrument (the 2011 Recommendation on the Historic Urban Landscape) to showcase the limitations and possibilities of the project of cities in international law. I argue that there is a paradox of visibility and agency that permeates international legal possibilities for cities, and placing the city simultaneously in the registers of object and subject ultimately defers the central question of community involvement in international law on global public goods.

An International Perspective

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christina Eckes ◽  
Ramses A. Wessel
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
International Law ◽  
Constant Pressure ◽  
International Perspective ◽  
International Organization ◽  
Equal Footing ◽  
Legal Narratives ◽  
State Actor ◽  
Point Of Reference ◽  
The Eu

The European Union’s ability to conduct its own foreign policy is not contested as a matter of principle. The Union is for instance the only non-state actor that participates in certain international functional regimes on equal footing with states. At the same time, the Union’s ability to conduct its own foreign policy remains under constant pressure, both from the outside and from the inside. This pressure is created by states, which use both external and internal legal narratives to try to rein in the at least at times quasi-sovereign external posture of the EU. Under international law the narrative goes that only states are vested with ‘original rights’ and hence are ‘primary subjects’ of international law. Even though other international actors accept that the Union takes at times a state-like position, ‘the EU is, under international law, precluded by its very nature from being considered a State’ and classified as an international organization. In that capacity, the Union remains seen as exercising delegated rights and at least partially as penetrable in that behind the organization there are still the Member States as the ultimate point of reference. These pressures have from the outset led to the idea that the EU

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