Critical Perspectives on Intervention

2012

This formal statocentrism is, of course, not without its exceptions and contestations. International Humanitarian Law, for example, can be said to ascribe rights to individuals, while International Criminal Law attributes responsibility to them. However, according to orthodox accounts, the state is still the key actor in the field, either because instances of individual rights and responsibilities are highly specific to a particular issue or situation, or because the treaties and rules of customary law which confer individual rights/responsibilities (and upon which such rights/responsibilities are dependent) are made by, and bind, only nation-states. For a more detailed discussion of this particular issue, see

Perspectives on Politics, 2010

Humanity: An International Journal of Human Rights, Humanitarianism, and Development, 2014

Indian Journal of International Law, 2015

Jeff Handmaker and Karin Arts (eds), Mobilising International Law for ‘Global Justice’, Cambridge University Press, pp. 1-21, 2018

Abstract (as formulated in introductory chapter): The edited volume Mobilising International Law for 'Global Justice' provides new insights into the dynamics between politics and international law and the roles played by state and civic actors in pursuing human rights, development, security and justice through mobilising international law at local and international levels. This includes attempts to hold states, corporations or individuals accountable for violations of international law. Second, this book examines how enforcing international law creates particular challenges for intergovernmental regulators seeking to manage tensions between incompatible legal systems and bringing an end to harmful practices, such as foreign corruption and child abduction. Finally, it explores how international law has local resonance, whereby, for example, cities have taken it upon themselves to give effect to the spirit of international treaties that national governments fail to implement, or even may have refused to ratify. Chapter 2 by Martti Koskenniemi substantially sets the tone of the book and thus all authors make reference to his contribution. Koskenniemi addresses what he refers to as the ‘competing vocabularies’ of international justice, international politics, and international law and their relationship with each other, highlighting justice as the most important and difficult to define of the three. He then highlights how lawyers and political observers view these concepts differently and observes that there is no correct response to the question 'who is right'? Often it is a matter of looking through frames simultaneously, while also explicitly recognising the differences and the implications of each other’s positions. He then revisits his often-stated critique on the fragmentation of international law, emphasising the importance of legal learning on the failure of international law to resolve social problems, which he characterises as the ‘politics of re-description’. He further observes that lawyers need to engage with this rather than avoid it (which lawyers are inclined to do).

International Journal of Research in Engineering, Science and Management, 2020

The concept of intervention under international law is not new but is as old as the concept of state and was growing slowly and gradually since then. However, after World War II, the law of intervention developed rapidly. Historical analysis shows that states used to intervene in the internal affairs of other states. However, after the middle of 20th century, various developments took place resulting in shrinking of area of domestic jurisdiction. These led to changed concept of intervention under changing dimensions of international law giving rise to the question of legitimacy. Various instances of intervention have taken place since 1990s, which have raised eyebrows all over the globe. This article is a humble attempt to make an analysis of the concept of intervention and its legitimacy under the presently changing dimensions of international law.

Oxford Bibliographies Online Datasets, 2000

International law has traditionally been above all a law aimed at reinforcing sovereignty and, secondarily, of taming it via the emergence of an international community. What is typically excluded from this encounter is a whole series of efforts undertaken by civil society, individuals, or social movements, even when those objectively reinforce international law's goals. International law as a normative project could gain significantly from a greater recognition of the striking role played by non-state actors in its implementation. A case can be made that if international law increasingly casts itself substantively as a law of human beings, then its modes of implementation should follow suit. The idea of resistance as a rehabilitation of the role human agency can provide the missing link. The article suggests ten preliminary conditions before such a utopia could take root.

This paper aims to analyze the relative neglect often given to international law under philosophy of law studies. Within this context, the relationship between law and reasoning, in the light of the international realm, is taken in a broader level to understand the role played by this field of knowledge in H.L.A. Hart’s The Concept of Law, among other works of reference. With the consolidation of normative and jurisprudential work of several international fora, such as the United Nations, its affiliate agencies, and many international courts other than the International Court of Justice, international law has given rise to several legal phenomena worth understanding through a philosophical perspective. Regardless of the field of study, whether humanitarian law, international economic law, or transnational justice, the social and political role international law plays nowadays has been growing exponentially.Notwithstanding its importance, there is a current negligence to the philosophy of international law among authors from all over the world. Despite researching fields such as distributive justice, group justice and transnational justice, not enough thought is put into understanding current legal theories behind international law, neither into the possibility of conceiving a moral theory in the context of legal pluralism. In view of these main issues, the article aims not only to examine international law as a viable field of study for the philosophy of law in the context of legal pluralism, but also to further understand its developmental consequences for the international order. Therefore, this article analyzes with remarkable concern the importance of the global expansion of human rights in order to better examine the role that international human rights can play in the definition of an international legal order.

Asian Journal of International Law, 2019