Teaching International Law: Beyond The Law School Experience

As teachers, it is perhaps natural for us to think about teaching in the classroom context, although this panel is demonstrating the teaching opportunities that may exist outside of a single course or courses in international law

The Developing Role of Non-Governmental Organizations in Global Policy and Law Making

The history of international relations in the twentieth century may appear principally to be the story of the state. At the same time, the history of international relations in the twentieth century is also one of international organizations as a means to support and strengthen the state\u27s ability to discharge its primary functions of promoting order in the international system and ensuring the security of its own citizens. An even more aggressive approach to meeting the needs of states is through aid programs like the UN Development Program. These international organizations were created by governments, usually by treaty, to address common needs and problems through common institutions and methods. States created international organizations to supplement state functions and thereby ensure their continued existence. The most dramatic example of this is the collective security provisions of the UN Charter, which provide that when one member is attacked or is a victim of aggression, all other member states are committed to come to its defense. In the late twentieth century, with the increase in transborder communication and activity, the emergence of global problems, and limited financial resources, states and the international organizations they created still appear inadequate to meet new demands. A driving force is the expressed and organized desire of individuals to exercise greater control of decision-making in issues which directly affect their lives. This desire for direct action confronts governmental institutions and authorities which appear inadequate or unable to address various problems--environmental protection, economic and political development, human rights, for example. These are areas in which single-minded commitment to an issue, claims to moral authority, and specific expertise may be highly effective. Developments in technology and communication help by supporting far flung networks of individuals who would otherwise have difficulty staying in touch to develop common strategies and positions. Such networks now also have the financial and professional resources to further their goals. Voluntary organizations of individuals may command greater credibility in areas where governments have been discredited by their past actions; such groups may be able to extend scarce resources by organizing and mobilizing individuals on a volunteer basis, and may be more accessible and closer to the people at the community, neighborhood or village level. As a result, both states and international organizations now seek the assistance of non-governmental organizations to supplement their efforts. In this context, NGO\u27s are emerging as a special set of organizations that are private in form but public in their purpose. Lester Saloman writes that the NGO phenomenon is a response to a complex set of pressures: from \u27below\u27 in the form of spontaneous grass-roots energies, from the \u27outside\u27 through the actions of various public and private institutions, and from \u27above\u27 in the form of government policies. toring compliance as a sort of new world police force. This increased role is encouraged by the nature of the issues faced by states and citizens today, issues which are not responsive to centralized decision-making and a preponderance of power, but which are long-range, open-ended and diffuse in their need for attention. The adaptability of the state to meet new situations and work with differing political structures and dynamics is indicative of its resilience and continued durability as a political concept and factor

The ASIL as an Epistemic Community

Three comments, on the program of this Annual Meeting. We have answered the theme question in various ways, and we have done some things less well, others better. The focus of a political scientist differs from that of an international lawyer, dealing more with process than with outcome. We have taken a relatively simplistic look at outcomes-that is, we have often looked at whether international institutions have done what they said they were going to do; we have not looked nearly so much at whether they fixed the problems they were trying to fix. The second point that emerges very clearly is that there is indeed a multiplicity of institutions, which causes various problems for nongovernmental as well as for governmental institutions. There is multiplicity without a clear hierarchy; therefore, coordination problems arise. We did not address these coordination problems very well, nor did we address the fact that many states are terribly overburdened by the multiplicity of institutions. The average number of memberships in international institutions for a state is now sixty. Very few countries are capable of managing memberships in sixty organizations. That weakens the policy-making mechanisms of international institutions, and we have not thought through how that may be corrected. Thirdly, we addressed in some ways the issue of institutional change-most clearly in our discussions of the crisis between the United States and the United Nations. In one way, it is a crisis about legal obligations. It is also, though, a crisis about how institutions change--and how we make decisions about how they change. It should not surprise us, looking at domestic institutions, that the process is quite messy. We did not address particularly how that process might be improved and strengthened. That is the key issue we must face as we think about making international institutions more effective and more accountable

When Can Nations Go to War - Politics and Change in the UN Security System

We found that the post-World War II international security system as provided for in the United Nations Charter has adapted to a variety of new tasks, but that it remains incomplete. We discovered that the UN Charter system as a means to restrain the use of force has perhaps developed more fully than the Charter system\u27s ability to authorize and to enable states to use force in situations other than a clear cross border invasion of a member state. At the same time, we recognized that the existence of an international institution like the United Nations has fundamentally changed the character of international politics in two ways. First, the fact that international institutions are based on assumptions of sovereign equality affects the relative power of states, thereby providing all states (whether small or large) both a voice and a part in the decision-making process. Second, after a half century, international institutions have emerged as new forms of political authority. Which side of the argument is right? Is it the side that argues the responsibility of power to act, if necessary unilaterally, to protect those who are being victimized? Or is it the side that argues that, however compelling the case, states today cannot act on the basis of their own conclusions and judgment without direct provocation or international authorization? And if the United States acts without Security Council authorization, does that spell the end of the nearly sixty-year-old UN security system? Are we reverting to the unregulated use of force as an instrument of state policy in existence prior to the advent of the League of Nations and the United Nations? We do not yet know, but each step taken outside of the UN framework, particularly by the most powerful member of the United Nations, raises a question about the ongoing relevance of that framework. How the question is answered, though, may be more significant in determining the UN\u27s future than what the answer is

When Can Nations Go to War - Politics and Change in the UN Security System

We found that the post-World War II international security system as provided for in the United Nations Charter has adapted to a variety of new tasks, but that it remains incomplete. We discovered that the UN Charter system as a means to restrain the use of force has perhaps developed more fully than the Charter system\u27s ability to authorize and to enable states to use force in situations other than a clear cross border invasion of a member state. At the same time, we recognized that the existence of an international institution like the United Nations has fundamentally changed the character of international politics in two ways. First, the fact that international institutions are based on assumptions of sovereign equality affects the relative power of states, thereby providing all states (whether small or large) both a voice and a part in the decision-making process. Second, after a half century, international institutions have emerged as new forms of political authority. Which side of the argument is right? Is it the side that argues the responsibility of power to act, if necessary unilaterally, to protect those who are being victimized? Or is it the side that argues that, however compelling the case, states today cannot act on the basis of their own conclusions and judgment without direct provocation or international authorization? And if the United States acts without Security Council authorization, does that spell the end of the nearly sixty-year-old UN security system? Are we reverting to the unregulated use of force as an instrument of state policy in existence prior to the advent of the League of Nations and the United Nations? We do not yet know, but each step taken outside of the UN framework, particularly by the most powerful member of the United Nations, raises a question about the ongoing relevance of that framework. How the question is answered, though, may be more significant in determining the UN\u27s future than what the answer is

Abolition of China\u27s Unequal Treaties and the Search for Regional Stability in Asia, 1919-1943

Article Extract: On July 1, 1997, China will resume control over Hong Kong - territory ceded to Britain in 1842 following China\u27s defeat in the Opium War. The settlement of the Hong Kong question and the scheduled 1999 reversion of Macao from Portugal to China will effectively remove the last traces of the restrictions and encroachments placed on China by treaty for 150 years following the 1842 Treaty of Nanking. The unequal treaty system began with the trading and residential privileges provided by the Treaty of Nanking. Britain was the premier trading power in China in the nineteenth century, and the treaty and trading system that developed there were largely of British design. The United States and France benefitted from this framework, and added to it. Russia added border issues and overland trade to the system. Germany and Japan, latecomers to the China trade, essentially had to confine their activities to the framework created by the earlier powers in China. The Treaty of Nanking with the United Kingdom and separate treaties concluded with the United States and France opened China to trade with the outside. The two basic elements of the treaty framework were the most favored nation clause and diplomatic relations on an equal footing. Some form of the most favored nation clause was used by all the treaty powers from the outset to ensure that they would receive no less in rights and privileges than their fellow treaty powers. China granted this freely. For the Chinese, it seemed only logical that what was granted to one sea barbarian should be granted to another. This liberal granting of most favored nation status would later work to China\u27s disadvantage when it sought to revise its treaties. The clause bound all the treaty powers together, making it impossible for China to restructure its treaty relations with one without involving all the powers

When \u3cem\u3eCan\u3c/em\u3e Nations Go to War? Politics and Change in the UN Securtiy System

In an appreciation of Harold Jacobson written for the American Journal of International Law, the author concluded that following the events of September 11, 2001, we would need the kind of gentle wisdom Harold Jacobson brought to his tasks more than ever. The author also recalled Harold Jacobson\u27s own observation in Networks of Interdependence that his assessment of the global political system was an optimistic, but not a naive one. These qualities of quiet determination to get to the bottom of an issue and of optimism stemmed from a fundamental belief that individuals, armed with information and the opportunity for debate, could make important decisions wisely. This was at the heart of his interest in politics and sustained his deep commitment to working carefully through information to provide the fullest possible understanding of a problem. The last major project Harold Jacobson worked on was one that he conceived and directed with me to understand how accountability could be maintained when decisions to use military forces are made by international institutions not directly accountable, as are national governments, to citizens in democratic societies

Legitimacy as an Assessment of Existing Legal Standards: The Case of the 2003 Iraq War

The Iraq war was a multiple assault on the foundations and rules of the existing UN-centered world order. It called into question the adequacy of the existing institutions for articulating global norms and enforcing compliance with the demands of the international community. It highlighted also the unwillingness of some key countries to wait until definitive proof before acting to meet the danger of the world\u27s most destructive weapons falling into the hands of the world\u27s most dangerous regimes. It was simultaneously a test of the UN\u27s willingness and ability to deal with brutal dictatorships and a searching scrutiny of the nature and exercise of American power. The United States is the world\u27s indispensable power, but the United Nations is the world\u27s indispensable institution. The UN Security Council is the core of the international law enforcement system and the chief body for building, consolidating and using the authority of the international community. The United Nations has the primary responsibility to maintain international peace and security, and is structured to discharge this responsibility in a multipolar world where the major powers have permanent membership of the key collective security decision-making body, namely the UN SecurityCouncil. The emergence of the United States as the sole superpower after the end of the Cold War distorted the structural balance in the UN schema. The United Nations is the main embodiment of the principle of multilateralism and the principal vehicle for the pursuit of multilateral goals. The United States has global power, soft as well as hard; the United Nations is the fount of international authority. Progress towards a world of a rules-based, civilized international order requires that US force be put to the service of lawful international authority. This book examines these major normative and structural challenges from a number of different perspectives

The Archipelagic States Concept and Regional Stability in Southeast Asia

For the Philippines and Indonesia, adoption by the Third Law of the Sea Conference in the 1982 Law of the Sea Convention (1982 LOS Convention) of Articles 46-54 on Archipelagic States, marked the capstone of the two countries\u27 efforts to win international recognition for the archipelagic principle. For both, acceptance by the international community of this principle was an important step in their political development from a colony to a sovereign state. Their success symbolized independence from colonial status and their role in the shaping of the international community in which they live