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18481. Positivism and the Pesky Sovereign

Author:
David Dyzenhaus
Publication Date:
05-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
I argue that Hans Kelsen anticipated the main contribution of Jeremy's Waldron's article: the idea that the place of nation states in the international legal order is akin to that of administrative agencies in the domestic legal order, and thus as wielding delegated rather than original authority. For both wish to understand sovereignty as a kind of metaphor for the unity of a legal system rather than as a pre-legal entity. However, legal positivism is unable to make the move to conceiving of sovereignty that way, since the positivist prejudice against natural law has the result that the idea of a pre-legal sovereign is repressed in one place only to pop up in multiple others. In issue in this debate are two conceptions of the rule of law, a positivistic conception that the rule of law consists mainly of determinate rules and a Fullerian conception in which the rule of law is understood as facilitating a certain process of reason and argument. Since Waldron sees the attraction of the latter conception, and since that conception avoids the problem of the pesky sovereign, I suggest that Waldron should embrace it.
Topic:
Sovereignty and Law

18482. Sovereignty, International Law and Democracy

Author:
Samantha Besson
Publication Date:
05-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
In my reply to Jeremy Waldron's article 'Are Sovereigns Entitled to the Benefit of the International Rule of Law?', I draw upon and in some ways expand Waldron's important contribution to our understanding of the international rule of law. First of all, I suggest that Waldron's argument about the international rule of law can be used to illuminate how we should understand the legitimate authority of international law over sovereign states, but also how some of sovereign states' residual independence ought to be protected from legitimate international law. Secondly, I argue that the democratic pedigree of the international rule of law plays a role when assessing how international law binds democratic sovereign states and whether the international rule of law can and ought to benefit their individual subjects. Finally, I emphasize how Waldron's argument that the international rule of law ought to benefit individuals in priority has implications for the sources of international law and for what sources can be regarded as sources of valid law.
Topic:
International Law and Sovereignty

18483. Response: The Perils of Exaggeration

Author:
Jeremy Waldron
Publication Date:
05-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
Some of the points made in these comments presuppose that I have a more radical agenda than in fact I have. In this article, I wanted to reorient our understanding of the national state's position in international law, from that of subject to that of source and agency of that legal system, and I wanted to explore the implications of this reorientation for our understanding of the rule of law in the international realm. This reorientation of course requires us to take international law seriously. But it does not necessarily require any particular philosophical view of the relation between international law and national law. 1 In particular it does not direct us to any sort of jurisprudential monism (although it is not incompatible with monism). I think it is quite compatible with a dualist view of the relation between international and national law (not that it commits us to dualism either). It simply assigns the state a somewhat different role from that conventionally assigned in dualist theories. My analysis implies that some of what we would call national state and legal functions can (and should) sometimes be conceived as functions of the international legal system. When a state patrols its borders, for example, it is acting in part as an agency of the international refugee regime. 2 But the exercise of any given legal function can be understood in multiple ways. As I …
Topic:
International Law

18484. A Transatlantic Friendship: René-Jean Dupuy and Wolfgang Friedmann

Author:
Pierre-Marie Dupuy
Publication Date:
05-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
René-Jean Dupuy and Wolfgang Friedmann were good friends and for a large part shared a common vision of how post-World War II international law was structured and the ways in which it was evolving. It is worth comparing their respective views as they reflect the way in which a generation of international lawyers perceived in particular the impact of international organizations on modern international law seen as a true international legal order. Although influenced by the ideas of that period (the 1960s and 1970s), the views of these two great 'men of vision' remain of immense interest for the present and for times to come.
Topic:
International Law

18485. René-Jean Dupuy and the Tragic City. The Surveyor, the Captain and the Poet

Author:
Alix Toublanc
Publication Date:
05-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
R.-J. Dupuy's works are based on a dialectical approach to international law which integrates the inner strife and the various antagonisms that beset the 'terrestrial city'. Nevertheless he refused Hegel's dialectic which opposes thesis and anthithesis to produce a sterile synthesis and leads to rigidity. On the contrary, Dupuy's 'open dialectic' is based on the rejection of mechanistic and deterministic philosophies, and his description of the terrestrial city is dynamic, perpetually confronting opposite points of view through the eyes of the 'Captain', the 'Surveyor', and the 'Poet' symbolizing the need for order, for change, and for transcendence.
Topic:
International Law

18486. The Thoughts of René-Jean Dupuy: Methodology or Poetry of International Law?

Author:
Evelyne Lagrange
Publication Date:
05-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
If the thoughts of René-Jean Dupuy had to be reduced to an expression, it would be his method of 'open dialectic' applied to international law and society which enabled him to highlight the dynamic opposition of 'relational' and 'institutional' international trends in an impressive array of short surveys and ambitious synthesis. This article first aims to remind readers of the accuracy of Dupuy's comprehensive approach to international law and society, in that he never disregarded the meaning of rules and institutions for actors – mainly political ones – the underlying values and justice considerations or even myths beyond technical rules or political antagonisms. But it does not suffice to celebrate the visionary and rhetorical skills of Dupuy. His contribution to the methodology of international law has to be assessed. Did he build up a new paradigm? Considering some incertainties in the method of open dialectic and some shortcomings in his core concepts (inter alia a quite static conception of sovereignty), it may be doubted.
Topic:
International Law and Sovereignty

18487. The Audacity of the Texaco/Calasiatic Award: René-Jean Dupuy and the Internationalization of Foreign Investment Law

Author:
Julien Cantegreil
Publication Date:
05-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
The Texaco Overseas Petroleum Company and California Asiatic Oil Company v. The Government of the Libyan Arab Republic awards refer to concession contract provisions and a political context that are now obsolete. Thus, this article argues on the one hand that the award on the merits, delivered in January 1977, provides an unparalleled opportunity to survey almost every facet of the world of international investment arbitration of the past. On the other hand, the award must nevertheless also be read as forward-looking. By fostering a shift from the traditional hegemony of national jurisdiction in international investment law to the internationalization of international contracts, the article underlines that the award on the merits remains the finest example of René-Jean Dupuy's long-lasting contribution to international law doctrine. By way of conclusion, it suggests that it provides the very best expression and point of entry into Professor Dupuy's understanding and shaping of what he coined 'la communauté'.
Topic:
Government and International Law
Political Geography:
Asia, Libya, California, and Arabia

18488. Law Promotion Beyond Law Talk: The Red Cross, Persuasion, and the Laws of War

Author:
Steven R. Ratner
Publication Date:
05-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
The International Committee of the Red Cross casts itself as both a unique protector of individual victims of war and a special guardian of the body of international humanitarian law. It manages and reconciles these two roles through a complex, unconventional strategy that includes secret communications with warring parties, ambiguity in conveying its legal views to them, and, at times, a complete avoidance of legal arguments when persuading actors to follow international rules. This modus operandi not only challenges some standard views about the methods used by actors seeking to convince law violators to comply with norms; it also opens the door to a richer theoretical understanding of legal argumentation in that process of persuasion. The resulting construct consists of a matrix of inputs that determine how a persuading entity will deploy legal arguments and outputs that convey the dimensions of the resulting argumentation. Both the theory and the ICRC's work suggest that entities concerned with compliance would often do best to settle for a target to act consistently with a norm rather than to internalize it. They also raise difficult moral questions about whether compliance with international law is the optimal goal if it has adverse consequences for the values an institution seeks to uphold.
Topic:
War, Communications, and Law

18489. Roaming Charges: Berlin

Publication Date:
05-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
Roaming Charges is a new feature of EJIL aimed at enhancing the 'book experience' - a moment of reflection as well as aesthetic pleasure disconnected from any ...
Political Geography:
Berlin

18490. What has Become of the Emerging Right to Democratic Governance?

Author:
Susan Marks
Publication Date:
05-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
In 1992 the American Journal of International Law published an article by Tom Franck entitled 'The Emerging Right to Democratic Governance'. The article inaugurated an important debate on the relationship between international law and democracy. Reviewing that debate, I examine four different ways of thinking about the contemporary significance of the emerging right to democratic governance. While not claiming that any is wrong, I consider some respects in which each is limited. I also discuss Haiti, as a country which inspired the thesis of the emerging democratic entitlement, and one which remains illuminating for it today.
Topic:
Governance
Political Geography:
America