The Authority Of International Law

Offering a nuanced and realistic account of the authority of international law, this book discusses whether international law is obeyed, and the type of duties it imposes on the state. Through a review of present accounts ranging from the mainstream to extra-disciplinary, the extent of authority is explored.

The specialized vocabularies of lawyers, ethicists, and political scientists obscure the roots of many real disagreements. In this book, the distinguished American international lawyer Alfred Rubin provides a penetrating account of where these roots lie, and argues powerfully that disagreements which have existed for 3,000 years are unlikely to be resolved soon. Attempts to make 'war crimes' or 'terrorism' criminal under international law seem doomed to fail for the same reasons that attempts failed in the early nineteenth century to make piracy, war crimes, and the international traffic in slaves criminal under the law of nations. And for the same reasons, Professor Rubin argues, it is unlikely that an international criminal court can be instituted today to enforce ethicists' versions of 'international law'.

International law is fragmented and complex, and at the same time increasingly capable of shaping reality in areas as diverse as human rights, trade and investment, and environmental law. The increased influences of international law and its growing institutionalization and judicialization invites reconsideration of the question how should the authority to make and interpret international law be allocated among states, international organizations and tribunals, or in other words, "who should decide what" in a system that formally lacks a central authority? This is not only a juridical question, but one that lies at the very heart of the political legitimacy of international law as a system of governance, defining the relationship between those who create the law and those who are governed by it in a globalizing world. In this book, leading international legal scholars address a broad range of theoretical and practical aspects of the question of allocation of authority in international law and debate the feasibility of three alternative paradigms for international organization: Sovereignty, Supremacy and Subsidiarity. The various contributions transcend technical solutions to what is in essence a problem of international constitutional dimensions. They deal, inter alia, with the structure of the international legal system and the tenacity of sovereignty as one of its foundations, assess the role of supremacy in inter-judicial relations, and draw lessons from the experience of the European Union in applying the principle of subsidiarity. This volume will be of great interest to scholars and practitioners of international law alike.

International law is fragmented and complex, and at the same time increasingly capable of shaping reality in areas as diverse as human rights, trade and investment, and environmental law. The increased influences of international law and its growing institutionalization and judicialization invites reconsideration of the question how should the authority to make and interpret international law be allocated among states, international organizations and tribunals, or in other words, ""who should decide what"" in a system that formally lacks a central authority? This is not only a juridical questi.

The concept of global governance, which first emerged in the social s- ences, has triggered different responses in the discipline of law. This volume contains our proposal. It approaches global governance from a public law perspective which is centered around the concept of inter- tional public authority and relies on international institutional law for the legal conceptualization of global governance phenomena. This proposal results from a larger project which started in 2007. The project is a collaborative effort of the directors of the Max Planck Ins- tute for Comparative Public Law and International Law, research f- lows and friends of the Institute, as well as eminent members of the Law Faculty of the University of Heidelberg. Most of the materials contained in this volume were first published in the November 2008 - sue of the German Law Journal (http://www.germanlawjournal.com). We would like to express our sincere gratitude to the journal’s editors in chief, Professors Russell Miller (Washington and Lee University School of Law) and Peer Zumbansen (Osgoode Hall Law School, York U- versity, Toronto), for the opportunity to publish our papers as a special issue of their journal. The 2008-2009 University of Idaho College of Law German Law Journal student editors deserve special recognition for their hard and diligent work during the publication process. At the Institute, Eva Richter, Michael Riegner and the editorial staff of this publication series were instrumental in bringing this publication to fr- tion.

Public international law has embarked on a new chapter. Over the past century, the classical model of international law, which emphasized state autonomy and interstate relations, has gradually ceded ground to a new model. Under the new model, a state's sovereign authority arises from the state's responsibility to respect, protect, and fulfill human rights for its people. In Fiduciaries of Humanity: How International Law Constitutes Authority, Evan J. Criddle and Evan Fox-Decent argue that these developments mark a turning point in the international community's conception of public authority. Under international law today, states serve as fiduciaries of humanity, and their authority to govern and represent their people is dependent on their satisfaction of numerous duties, the most general of which is to establish a regime of secure and equal freedom on behalf of the people subject to their power. International institutions also serve as fiduciaries of humanity and are subject to similar fiduciary obligations. In contrast to the receding classical model of public international law, which assumes an abiding tension between a state's sovereignty and principles of state responsibility, the fiduciary theory reconciles state sovereignty and responsibility by explaining how a state's obligations to its people are constitutive of its legal authority under international law. The authors elaborate and defend the fiduciary model while exploring its application to a variety of current topics and controversies, including human rights, emergencies, the treatment of detainees in counterterrorism operations, humanitarian intervention, and the protection of refugees fleeing persecution.

The world is poised for another important transition. The United States is dealing with the impact of the Afghan and Iraq wars, the use of torture and secret detention, Guantanamo, climate change, nuclear proliferation, weakened international institutions, and other issues related directly or indirectly to international law. The world needs an accurate account of the important role of international law and The Power and Purpose of International Law seeks to provide it. Mary Ellen O'Connell explains the purpose of international law and the power it has to achieve that purpose. International law supports order in the world and the attainment of humanity's fundamental goals of peace, prosperity, respect for human rights, and protection of the natural environment. These goals can best be realized through international law, which uniquely has the capacity to bind even a superpower of the world. By exploring the roots and history of international law, and by looking at specific events in the history of international law, this book demonstrates the why and the how of international law and its enforcement. It directly confronts the notion that international law is "powerless" and that working within the framework of international law is useless or counter-productive. As the world moves forward, it is critical that both leaders and their citizens understand the true power and purpose of international law and this book creates a valuable resource for them to aid their understanding. It uses a clear, compelling style to convey topical, informative and cutting-edge information to the reader.

There has been intense debate in recent times over the legitimacy or otherwise of international law. This book contains fresh perspectives on these questions, offered at an international and interdisciplinary conference hosted by the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Law and International Law. At issue are questions including, for example, whether international law lacks legitimacy in general and whether international law or a part of it has yielded to the facts of power.