scholarly journals Norms Without the Great Powers: International Law, Nested Social Structures, and the Ban on Antipersonnel Mines

2015 ◽  
pp. n/a-n/a ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam Bower
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
Antipersonnel Mines

The Publication of the diplomatic papers of Other Governments

1947 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 365-377
Author(s):  
E. Wilder Spaulding
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Foreign Affairs ◽  
The Other ◽  
The World ◽  
Good Will ◽  
The Right ◽  
Small Powers

An expert on foreign affairs has summarized the limitation upon the right of a government to make public the diplomatic papers which it has received from another government as follows: “ … one party to a negotiation cannot, in honor and in courtesy, publish the negotiation without the consent of the other party, on pain of forfeiting that good-will upon which … ‘the peace of the world ultimately depends.’ ” This principle of consent to publication is accepted, with some reservations and exceptions, by American practice. But American practice in this matter is not generally accepted by all foreign offices and it is not precisely and definitely written into international law. It has been generally observed in normal times by the Great Powers, which have had most to gain by its application, and it has frequently been disregarded by small powers and by Great Powers in times of stress. It rests upon comity and reciprocity, not upon international legislation.

An analysis of stagnation in multilateral law-making – and why the law of the sea has transcended the stagnation trend

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Andreas Motzfeldt Kravik
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Current Trend ◽  
The United States ◽  
Legal Framework ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Great Power ◽  
Law Of The Sea ◽  
The Law ◽  
Law Making ◽  
Multilateral Treaties

Abstract The article explores the current stagnation in multilateral law-making based on an analysis of recent treaty attempts across various subfields of international law. It further examines why the law of the sea has continued to evolve despite this trend. The article demonstrates that states still regularly seek multilateral treaties to address new challenges. While there is some evidence of general treaty saturation, it is the current inability of traditional great powers to negotiate new binding norms which is the most constraining factor on multilateral law-making. This in turn is related to deeper geopolitical shifts by which traditional great powers, notably the United States and its allies, have seen their relative influence decline. Until the current great power competition ends or settles into a new mode of international co-operation, new multilateral treaties with actual regulatory effect will rarely emerge. The law of the sea has avoided the current trend of stagnation for primarily three reasons (i) a global commitment to the basic tenets of the law of the sea; (ii) a legal framework that affords rights and obligations somewhat evenly disbursed, allowing less powerful states to use their collective leverage to advance multilateral negotiations, despite intermittent great power opposition; and (iii) the avoidance of entrenched multilateral forums where decisions are reached by consensus only.

Transnational Migration Contesting Borders of Responsibility for Justice

2018 ◽  
Vol 45 (6) ◽  
pp. 799-814
Author(s):  
Zuzana Uhde
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Collective Identity ◽  
Global Justice ◽  
Transnational Migration ◽  
Global Capitalism ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
Structural Group ◽  
International Human Rights ◽  
Human Rights Regime ◽  
Transnational Migrants

The article focuses on structural causes of migration, putting forward an argument that such analysis sheds light on key shortcomings of today’s global geopolitical regime. First the author analyzes structural causes of transnational migration in global capitalism. She argues that transnational migrants represent a structural group of people who find themselves in a similar position in relation to social structures of current global economic architecture even though they do not necessarily have a collective identity. Second, the author discusses the methodological and practical limits of the current nation-state defined framework of responsibility for global justice which does not respond to structural causes of transnational migration and reproduces the internal contradictions of the international human rights regime. Following this critical analysis, the author focuses on the possibilities of extraterritorial obligations for justice, which are partly embedded in the current international law. Then she outlines an argument for a differentiated responsibility for global justice.

English School Methodology and Methods

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cornelia Navari
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Great Power ◽  
Historical Narratives ◽  
English School ◽  
Sociological Institutionalism ◽  
Positive Approach ◽  
Classical Realism ◽  
Historical Tradition ◽  
Hedley Bull

Coming from an empirical historical tradition, English School theory has a strong inductive core, represented in its historical narratives, and a positive approach to international law. But its core text is strongly deductive: Hedley Bull derived the basic precept of international society from a set of logical premises to which he attached a truth value. Its methodologies have varied accordingly, between agent-centered and structure-centered approaches, and it has deployed a variety of methods in respect to each, including anthropological interpretivism with regard to agents and historical and sociological institutionalism with regard to structures. Its focus on the state and institutions means that it shares method with regime theorists, and its focus on Great Powers and great power responsibility means that it shares some methods with regard to classical realism.

Conclusion

2019 ◽  
pp. 321-326
Author(s):  
Congyan Cai
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
American Exceptionalism ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Legal Order ◽  
International Context ◽  
International Legal Order

This chapter concludes this book by comparing American exceptionalism and Chinese exceptionalism in the context of the rise and fall of great powers. It agrees that all great powers, compared with other countries, are capable of advocating international law that advances their values and interests; in this sense, there is Chinese exceptionalism. More importantly, it suggests that different great powers have different exceptionalism, thereby bring about different implications on international legal order. This chapter does not purport to argue that people should have a rosy expectation for Chinese exceptionalism. In light of international context and China’s own particularities, however, it is more likely that Chinese exceptionalism can bring about new promise for international legal order, thereby balancing American exceptionalism. Therefore, Chinese exceptionalism merits serious consideration with sympathy.

International Law as Applied by England in the War

1915 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-44
Author(s):  
E. Grey ◽  
Norman Bentwich
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
World Wide ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Law Of War ◽  
Uniform Law ◽  
The Law ◽  
International Conventions

International law is at once on its trial and in the moulding as it has never been before. It is just a hundred years since the last world-wide war was fought; and to that period one must go back to trace the source of the principal rules and practices of the law of war, and especially of maritime warfare. In the interval, the form of international law and much of its substance have been entirely changed. From indefinite practice and varying usage, imperfectly systematized by text writers, it has passed into the condition of definite rules and uniform law, formulated by international conventions. But most of this definite law has not yet stood the test of practice. So far as the rules of maritime warfare are concerned, it is largely consolidated in conventions made at international conferences during the last seven years. These conventions have indeed been already applied in the war of Italy and the Balkan Powers against Turkey, but they were not searchingly tried in those contests, which were determined by land operations. Strictly, the conventions are not binding in this war, because they are intended to apply only in wars in which all the belligerents are parties, and Servia and Montenegro have not ratified any of the 1907 agreements; but, in fact, the great Powers are professing* to act according to the international legislation.

The Doctrine of the Equality of States and its Recent Modifications

1951 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 417-442 ◽  
Author(s):  
Herbert Weinschel
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
International Law ◽  
International Organizations ◽  
League Of Nations ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
International Organization ◽  
Dominant Position ◽  
Legal Principles ◽  
Legal Sanction ◽  
Political Scene

The doctrine of the equality of states has undergone gradual modifications, especially in more recent times—since the establishment of the League of Nations. The great Powers have probably at all times dominated the political scene, particularly during the nineteenth century. But since there existed no international organization, this predominance did not express itself in legal, but only in political terms, although it may at times have assumed a quasilegal status, such as in regard to the lawmaking provisions of various treaties of the nineteenth century, sponsored mainly by the great Powers, which acquired the character of general international law. It was only when international organizations were established, based on legal principles, that the dominant position of the great Powers received legal sanction.

scholarly journals Why Serbia is asked to recognize Kosovo with comparative examples of Bangladesh and Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus

2014 ◽  
pp. 991-1000
Author(s):  
Dejan Mirovic
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
World Bank ◽  
Foreign Debt ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
Turkish Republic ◽  
Independent State ◽  
Territorial Integrity ◽  
Public International Law ◽  
Northern Cyprus

In the context of public international law and relations between principles of territorial integrity and right to self-determination, independence of Kosovo will never be legal if it is not recognized by Serbia. This can be concluded from the examples of violent secession of Bangladesh and Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. That is why Serbia still has a right to decide about the independence of Kosovo and Metohija despite signing Brussels Agreement and the fact that 100 UN member states recognized Kosovo as an independent state. Forty years after the secession of northern part of the island, Nicosia has not recognized Turkish republic of Northern Cyprus, which caused that this secessionist creation does not become a member of the UN. Its independence is not full from the perspective of international law, and this fact that cannot be disputed in spite of the factual occupation of the northern part of island by Turkey. On the other side, Pakistan recognized the independence of Bangladesh and forever lost half of its population and state territory. In return, half of its foreign debt was written off, 90,000 prisoners were released and 13,000 square kilometers of territory in western part of Pakistan, controlled by India, were returned. However, no one is offering anything similar to Serbia to recognize the independence of Kosovo. Debts of Kosovo towards IMF and World Bank are paid by Serbia. In addition, if Serbia recognized the independence of Kosovo, Serbia would lose about 100,000 Serbs living on that territory and about 1,200 square kilometers of territory in the northern part of Kosovo which is not controlled by Pristina. In that context, it is clear that principles of territorial integrity are still stronger in international law then right to self-determination. Postmodernist theories have a goal to hide that fact. Key of the independence of so-called ?Kosovo? is still in hands of Belgrade. That is why there are so many persistent attempts and strong pressures from the West to recognize the independence of ?Kosovo?. Example of Cyprus shows how to resist those attempts within the framework of public international law (by applying the principles of territorial integrity). However, if in the future Serbia chooses the same approach as Pakistan in the case of Bangladesh, Kosovo will be lost forever. At that moment, it would be clear that the relations of great powers in the world have changed.

The UN Security Council

2018 ◽  
pp. 667-682 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian Hurd
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Security Council ◽  
International System ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Common Interest ◽  
International Peace ◽  
Un Security Council ◽  
United Nations System ◽  
Nations System ◽  
Popular Image

The Security Council is the leading body on international peace and security in the United Nations system. Its authority to identify and respond to breaches of international peace puts it in a position of legal authority over governments. This contradicts the popular image of an anarchic international system. Its practical power, by contrast, is animated by the desires of the great powers. A full view of its role in international security combines these legal and practical elements. The Council amplifies the power of its strongest members and legitimizes their collective global rule. When they share a common interest, the Council helps them enact it in the world; when they do not, it largely goes dormant. Forged at the intersection of international law and international politics, the Council oscillates between global hegemon and marginal player.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document