The Progressive Codification of International Law

1926 ◽  
Vol 20 (4) ◽  
pp. 655-669
Author(s):  
Manley O. Hudson
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
International Law ◽  
World War ◽  
Human Race ◽  
The Past ◽  
The People ◽  
Law Of Nations ◽  
The Common ◽  
Systematic Development ◽  
The Law

It was inevitable that the end of the World War should be followed by a revival of interest in the systematic development of the law of nations. Such a result was foreseen by W. E. Hall as long ago as 1890, but the extent of the revival and its consequences were pictured by him in terms altogether too sanguine. Many of the people who have expected the experience of the war to be capitalized in an immediate clarification of the laws of war must have been greatly disappointed by the events of the past years. A struggle which aroused so many passions, which divided a large part of the human race into hostile camps, could not possibly have produced the conditions necessary for building a new law which would embody the common views of people in many countries; but perhaps it did serve to direct attention to the lawless character of international relations in certain fields, and thus gave to politicians and lawyers opportunity for extending and improving the law governing such relations. If there has not been a general unanimity of opinion as to the method to be followed and the direction to be taken, the opportunity has not been neglected, and currents are now under way and agencies have been created which promise a continued if not a consistent progress for the future.

Hobbes among the Classic Jurists

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Boucher
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
International Law ◽  
The State ◽  
Law Of Nature ◽  
Law Of Nations ◽  
Complete Identification ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Hedley Bull ◽  
Hans Morgenthau

The classic foundational status that Hobbes has been afforded by contemporary international relations theorists is largely the work of Hans Morgenthau, Martin Wight, and Hedley Bull. They were not unaware that they were to some extent creating a convenient fiction, an emblematic realist, a shorthand for all of the features encapsulated in the term. The detachment of international law from the law of nature by nineteenth-century positivists opened Hobbes up, even among international jurists, to be portrayed as almost exclusively a mechanistic theorist of absolute state sovereignty. If we are to endow him with a foundational place at all it is not because he was an uncompromising realist equating might with right, on the analogy of the state of nature, but instead to his complete identification of natural law with the law of nations. It was simply a matter of subject that distinguished them, the individual and the state.

Some Problems in the History of the Law of Nations in Asia (1963)

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. H. Alexandrowicz
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
International Law ◽  
Case Law ◽  
Legal Aspects ◽  
State Sovereignty ◽  
Law Of Nations ◽  
The Family ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Law

This chapter considers problems in the study of the history of the law of nations in Asia. It argues that international lawyers have focused their attention on the legal aspects of contemporary problems of international relations and politics, and on the operation of tribunals and quasi-tribunals and the case law they produce. Writers of present day treatises of international law devote just a few introductory pages to the history of the subject and these short chapters are often based on similar introductions in nineteenth-century treatises. The chapter discusses some of the elements of legal change in which European–Asian relations played a significant role; the gradual elimination of the natural law outlook by growing European positivism; the principle of universality of the law of nations and the principle of identity of de facto and de jure State sovereignty; and the use of capitulations to delay the ‘entry’ of Asian States into the family of nations.

The Balance of Power in International Law: A History of an Idea

1979 ◽  
Vol 73 (4) ◽  
pp. 555-580 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alfred Vagts ◽  
Detlev F. Vagts
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
International Law ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
Legal Order ◽  
World War ◽  
International Policy ◽  
The Past ◽  
Law Of Nations ◽  
International Legal Order ◽  
History Of

The existence of a significant relationship between the concept of the balance of power and international law would be regarded as improbable by most modern international lawyers. They would think of the balance as a wholly obsolete conception and, in any case, as a part of international policy, or worse, part of cynical Realpolitik rather than of law. Earlier generations of jurists, however, did see international equilibrium either as an integral part of the system of rules of the law of nations or at least as a necessary precondition to the existence of such a law. Such a view of the interrelationship was never unanimous; indeed, there were in the past many legal observers who saw the balance of power as an obstacle to the development of an international legal order based on something more moral than force alone. This article is devoted to a study of the relationships between those two concepts as seen by the publicists who created the corpus of international law, principally during the period from the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 to the outbreak of World War I in 1914. It is not a study of the balance of power at large—a topic to which volumes might be dedicated—but only of that idea’s relationship with law.

Preventive War Critically Considered

1951 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 142-145 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pitman B. Potter
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
International Law ◽  
International Affairs ◽  
Preventive War ◽  
The Past ◽  
Peace And Justice ◽  
The Law ◽  
Law And Justice ◽  
American Society

Members of the American Society of International Law are by inference charged by the Constitution of their Society with doing all that is possible to promote the study and development of international law and the conduct of international affairs on the basis of law and justice. For this purpose it is not sufficient to study and advocate the development of the law itself or for its own sake. Much attention must be given, certainly much more than has been given in the past, to the second section of the mandate, partly because of its own importance and partly to provide the kind of international situation where the law can thrive and be effective— which in turn is calculated to promote peace and justice. Friends of international law cannot afford to evade even the most difficult and delicate issues in the field of international relations on the ground that they are purely political in character.

The Application of Soviet Laws and the Exception of Public Order

1927 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 238-256 ◽  
Author(s):  
Max Habicht
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
International Law ◽  
The State ◽  
Public Order ◽  
Private International Law ◽  
World War ◽  
The World ◽  
Uniform Solution ◽  
The Law

One of the most controversial rules of private international law is the exception of public order, the rule not to enforce foreign laws which are contrary to the fundamental conceptions of the law of the state having jurisdiction. There is no country in which this exception has not played an important rôle in the refusal to enforce foreign laws, and numerous writers have discussed the importance and difficulties of the exception of public order. Its problems had been thoroughly studied before the World War by many authorities on private international law, among others by Bustamante, Fiore, Kahn, Klein and Pillet, without a uniform solution having been reached. When, after the war, the states began to reestablish their international relations, the exception of public order began anew to play its rôle in the courts the world over, and to put the same difficulties before the judges dealing with cases of conflict between domestic and foreign laws.

scholarly journals The Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Nations Adopted by the American Institute of International Law

1916 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 211-221 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elihu Root
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Foreign Relations ◽  
American Institute ◽  
Foreign Service ◽  
The People ◽  
Law Of Nations ◽  
The World ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Law ◽  
International Events

With this meeting we finish the first decade of this Society. How great is the change of conditions in the field of international law during that period. Ten years ago all the governments of the world professed unqualified respect and obedience to the law of nations, and a very small number of persons not directly connected with government knew or cared anything about it. In this country at least international law was regarded as a rather antiquated branch of useless learning, diplomacy as a foolish mystery, and the foreign service as a superfluous expense. Now that governments have violated and flouted the law in many ways and with appalling consequences, the people of this country at least have begun to realize that observance of the law has a real and practical relation to the peace and honor of their own country and their own prosperity. They are beginning to take an interest in the subject, to discuss it in the newspapers, to inquire how observance of the law may be enforced. There appears a dawning consciousness that a democracy which undertakes to control its own foreign relations ought to know something about the subject. If we had not established this Society ten years ago to study and discuss and spread a knowledge of international law it would surely be demanded now, and we may be certain that our annual public discussions and the publication of the admirable Journal which we have always maintained, with its definite and certain informa-lion upon international events, its interesting and well informed discussion of international topics, and its supplements, with their wealth of authentic copies of international documents, have contributed materially towards fitting the people of our country to deal with the international situations which are before them.

The Authority of Vattel

1913 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 395-410 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles G. Fenwick
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
International Law ◽  
The Political ◽  
Law Of Nations ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Law ◽  
History Of International Law ◽  
Political Philosopher

There is no more significant commentary on the growth of international law, both in precision and in comprehensiveness, than an estimate of the relative authority of the name of Vattel in the world of international relations a century ago and in that of today. A century ago not even the name of Grotius himself was more potent in its influence upon questions relating to international law than that of Vattel. Vattel's treatise on the law of nations was quoted by judicial tribunals, in speeches before legislative assemblies, and in the decrees and correspondence of executive officials. It was the manual of the student, the reference work of the statesman, and the text from which the political philosopher drew inspiration. Publicists considered it sufficient to cite the authority of Vattel to justify and give conclusiveness and force to statements as to the proper conduct of a state in its international relations.At the present day the name and treatise of Vattel have both passed into the remoter field of the history of international law. It is safe to say that in no modern controversy over the existence and force of an alleged rule of international law would publicists seek to strengthen the position taken by them by quoting the authority of Vattel. As an exposition of the law of nations at a given period of its growth, the work can, it is true, lose nothing of its value, but in saying that it has thus won its place irrevocably among the classics of international law, we are merely repeating that it has lost its value as a treatise on the law of the present day.

The Law of International Organizations: A Subject which needs Exploration and Analysis

2004 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 9-21
Author(s):  
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
International Law ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
International Organizations ◽  
Directed Attention ◽  
The Past ◽  
Specific Category ◽  
The World ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Law

AbstractThe law of international organizations, including the institutional law, has been somewhat neglected in the past, even though, or perhaps because, international organizations are creations largely of the 20th century. In my treatise on Principles of the Institutional Law of International Organizations, first published in late 1996 and going now, at the request of the publisher, into a second edition, I directed attention, perhaps in a seminal way, to this institutional law, its importance and its qualification to be considered a specific category not only of general international law but also of international organizational law. In my view there is ample room for further thorough study of various aspects particularly of this law without neglecting the functional international law of international organizations. Apart from principle, their application or non-application in practice may usefully be studied. This by itself justifies a law journal devoted to the subject of international organizational law in general. Moreover, the justification is further reinforced by the fact that now international organizations have become a feature of everyday life in the world. Here, at the risk of repeating what I have said in my book referred to above, because such repetition can only emphasize the importance of the subject matter, I shall concentrate on four aspects which are relevant to international organizational law, to its importance as a part of international law and to its influence on international relations: (i) the pervasiveness of international organizations; (ii) the concept of international institutional law; (iii) its nature; and (iv) its sources.

Rereading Grotius in the Year 1940

1940 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 459-472 ◽  
Author(s):  
Durward V. Sandifer
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
International Law ◽  
Annual Meeting ◽  
International Lawyer ◽  
Law Of Nations ◽  
The Law ◽  
American Society ◽  
Set Up

“We await a jurist with the mastery of the legal materials, the philosophical vision, and the juristic faith which enabled Grotius to set up a law of nations almost at one stroke,” declared Dean Pound in concluding his address before the Thirty-Third Annual Meeting of the American Society of International Law on “The Idea of Law in International Relations.” That is a statement which challenges the attention and arouses the curiosity of a present-day international lawyer. Although accustomed as such a lawyer is to the notion of Grotius as the founder and father of the law of nations, it is a little startling to be told that the answer to the current dilemma of international law is contingent upon the advent of a jurist with his accomplishments. What is there in his De Jure Belli ac Pads to warrant such confidence? What would he have to offer as a guide to a lawyer seeking to extend and to reenforce the domain of law in international relations?

Identifying a Principle of International Law Today

1974 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
pp. 106-122
Author(s):  
S. Prakash Sinha
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
International Relations ◽  
International Law ◽  
General Application ◽  
International Lawyer ◽  
Law Of Nature ◽  
Law Of Nations ◽  
The Will ◽  
The Law

The midwives of international law, Gentili, Grotius, Vitoria, Suarez, Pufendorf, and Wolff, found the principles of this law in the law of nature. This, in turn, was derived by some of them from the law of God and by others from the law of reason. But, as the law of nations grew and its content developed, its derivation was established, particularly with Vattel in the middle of the eighteenth century, from the will of states rather than from the law of nature. Today’s international lawyer simply inherits the principle of identification whereby international-law rules of general application are created by international custom. (This custom is produced by that kind of practice of states relating to a matter of international relations which is concordant and general and is accompanied by the conviction of states that it is obligatory under international law.) The application of this principle of identification, however, is not so simple because of the appearance of three new situations.

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