Confronting colonial otherness: the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council and the limits of imperial legal universalism

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bonny Ibhawoh
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
British Empire ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Privy Council ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Social Forms ◽  
The Ideal

This chapter examines British imperial rule of law and its relationship to colonial difference. The ideal of impartial legality within the British Empire was embodied in a supreme right of appeal to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, a right continues in force even in a few locations today. During its more active periods, the Privy Council saw itself as the instantiation of the idea of rule of law across the empire, and therefore as a profound force toward world-spanning legality and social order. Yet this universal aspiration toward the rule of law did not lead toward simple assertions that all peoples throughout the empire should immediately adopt British social forms. Instead, the judges sought to assimilate existing patterns of social life to a shared juridical order. Theirs was a universalism that did not insist upon the same rights for everyone, regardless of who and where they might be, but rather emphasized the submersion of all local legal orders to the rule of the empire’s central court. As Ibhawoh notes, many of the questions that occupied the Privy Council continue to matter today as developing systems of international law replay many similar, difficult debates.

Self-Defense and the Rule of Law

1989 ◽  
Vol 83 (2) ◽  
pp. 259-277 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oscar Schachter
Keyword(s):  
National Security ◽  
International Law ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
International Level ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Self Defense ◽  
Legal Justification ◽  
The Ideal ◽  
Legal Right

Self-defense on the international level is generally regarded, at least by international lawyers, as a legal right defined and legitimated by international law. Governments, by and large, appear to agree. When they have used force, they have nearly always claimed self-defense as their legal justification. Governments disputing that claim have usually asserted that the legal conditions of self-defense were not met in the particular case. However, despite the apparent agreement that self-defense is governed by law, the meaning and validity of that proposition remain open to question. There are some who challenge the basic idea that the security of a state—its self-preservation—can and should be subjected to international law. Others question whether under present conditions the ideal of a rule of law can be applied on the international level to national security decisions. My aim in this essay is to explore some aspects of the problem raised by these challenges to the applicability of international law to claims of self-defense. It is not my intention, I should add, to consider specific interpretations of self-defense.

Hugo Grotius and the Universal Rule of Law

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christoph Stumpf
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
International Law ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Legal Norms ◽  
Hugo Grotius ◽  
Universal Rule ◽  
Modern Sense ◽  
The Ideal

In this chapter, it is argued that Hugo Grotius’s system of international law is informed by a profound concept of a ‘rule of law’. While there is a strong tradition of reading Grotius’s works in a ‘liberal’ sense, as propagating a supposedly ‘modern’ sense of minimalist international law set apart from morality, this chapter follows an interpretation first put forward by Martin Wight according to which Grotius conceives of a ‘dual’ or ‘concentric’ system of international relations: hence, there is an inner circle of nations following the ideal of a society of Christian nations in the sense of the respublica Christiana following Christian law, and a wider circle of nations united by the universal fellowship among human beings governed by natural law. The chapter first analyses Grotius’s categorization of legal norms, then his views on the setup of States, and finally his perception of the rule of law in war.

scholarly journals From Reigning to Governing: Technologies of Power

Lex Russica ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (9) ◽  
pp. 19-42
Author(s):  
I. A. Isaev
Keyword(s):  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Digital Technologies ◽  
Private Life ◽  
The Political ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Political Pluralism ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Legal Thinking ◽  
The Ideal

The article is devoted to the problem of “technologization” of modern political and legal thinking from its origins in the 16th — 17th centuries up to the era of “digital technologies.” Technocratic tendencies, having been manifested in the political sphere, led to the emergence of the ideal government apparatus, namely: bureaucracy. This new social phenomenon has replaced the old hierarchical and sovereignty-oriented systems of governance. The complexity of social life and political pluralism required changes in the nature of governing technologies. Within the framework of the “disciplinary” society, government techniques form the normative environment of existence. The rule of law replaces the domination of personalities. The power is differentiated on the network principle. There comes a time of domination of biopower regulating public and private life and tending to totalization and rigidity.

Cardinal Richelieu between Vattel and Machiavelli

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony Carty
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
International Law ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
Historical Research ◽  
Practical Implementation ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
God's Will ◽  
Legal Thought ◽  
Rule Of Reason

The view that no form of international law existed in seventeenth-century France, and that this time was a part of ‘prehistory’, and thus irrelevant for international legal thought today is challenged. In addition, the traditional claim of Richelieu to be an admirer of Machiavelli and his Ragion di Stato doctrine to the detriment of the aim of concluding treaties and keeping them (as sacred), is refuted by careful historical research. In Richelieu’s thinking, there is a role for law to play but it is law as justice, law in the classical natural law tradition. Those who rule are subject to the rule of law as justice, the rule of God, or the rule of reason. In Richelieu’s world, kings and ministers are rational instruments of the practical implementation of God’s will on earth.

International ethics and international law

1992 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Terry Nardin
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
International Law ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
International Affairs ◽  
International Ethics ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Ethical Significance

In this paper I am going to argue a familiar but still controversial thesis about the relation between international ethics and international law, which I would sum up in the following list of propositions:First, international law is a source as well as an object of ethical judgements. The idea of legality or the rule of law is an ethical one, and international law has ethical significance because it gives institutional expression to the rule of law in international relations.Secondly, international law—or, more precisely, the idea of the rule of law in international relations—reflects a rule-oriented rather than outcome-oriented ethic of international affairs. By insisting on the priority of rules over outcomes, this ethic rejects consequentialism in all its forms.

The Involvement of UN in Palestine and the Possibility of a Global Protection Force

2021 ◽  
pp. 105-112
Author(s):  
Kainat Kamal
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Law ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Peacekeeping Operations ◽  
Security Environment ◽  
Sustainable Peace ◽  
Un Peacekeeping ◽  
Peace And Security ◽  
Peacekeeping Missions

The United Nations (UN) peacekeeping missions are mandated to help nations torn by conflict and create conditions for sustainable peace. These peacekeeping operations hold legitimacy under international law and the ability to deploy troops to advance multidimensional domains. Peacekeeping operations are called upon to maintain peace and security, promote human rights, assist in restoring the rule of law, and help conflict-prone areas create conditions for sustainable peace ("What is Peacekeeping", n.d.). These missions are formed and mandated according to individual cases. The evolution of the global security environment and developing situations in conflictridden areas requires these missions to transform from 'traditional' to 'robust' to 'hybrid', accordingly (e.g., Ishaque, 2021). So why is it that no such model can be seen in restoring peace and protection of Palestinian civilians in one of the most protracted and deadly conflicts in history?

Stakeholder Theory and Justice Issues: The Leap from Business Management to Contemporary International Law

2010 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 143-180
Author(s):  
Bronik Matwijkiw ◽  
Anja Matwijkiw
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
International Law ◽  
Stakeholder Theory ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Transitional Justice ◽  
Business Management ◽  
Secretary General ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
The United Nations

AbstractIn this article, the two authors examine the leap from business management to contemporary international law in the context of stakeholder theory. Because stakeholder theory was developed for business management, they provide a thorough account of the original framework. Furthermore, to illustrate the theory's application as a recently adopted parameter for the United Nations, they use former Secretary-General Kofi Atta Annan's 2004-report to the Security Council, "The Rule of Law and Transitional Justice in Conflict and Post-Conflict Societies". Proceeding on the hypothesis that while all premises ultimately match traditional positions in general jurisprudence, it appears that stakeholder theory nevertheless forces the United Nations to take sides in an unprecedented manner, especially pertaining to rights-typology and the credentials-checking for this. Finally, some of the most important implications are distilled as part of an attempt to formulate a few recommendations for United Nations justice managers and administrators.

The Rule of Law: The New Leviathan?

1999 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 151-168 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olufemi Taiwo
Keyword(s):  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Philosophical Tradition ◽  
Global Level ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
The World ◽  
Social Ordering ◽  
Soviet Communism ◽  
Just Society ◽  
Different Parts ◽  
The Ideal

These are the best of times for the Rule of Law. In all parts of the world, states, governments, and individuals, have found in the rule of law, at various times, a rallying cry, a principle of social ordering that promises the dawn of a just society that its supporters in Euro-American democracies claim to be its crowning glory, or a set of practices that is a sine qua non of a good society. The pursuit of the ideal is nothing new: after all, even those states where it was observed more often in its breach always paid lip service to it. And the defunct socialist countries of Eastern Europe, while they existed, could not escape its lure even as they sought to give it a different nomenclature—socialist legality. The movement towards the rule of law has accelerated after the collapse of Soviet communism and its foster progeny in different parts of the world. Given the present momentum towards the rule of law and the widespread enthusiasm with which it is being embraced and pursued at the global level, some would consider it somewhat churlish for anyone to inject any note of doubt or caution. This is more so when such a note emanates from Marxist quarters. But that is precisely what I wish to do in this essay. Although I do not intend to rain on the rule of law’s entire parade, I surely propose to rain on a segment of it: the Marxist float. I propose to look at the issue within the context of the Marxist politico-philosophical tradition.

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