Beware of Historians Bearing False Analogies

A response to the book "The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers" by Paul Kennedy (1987).IC2 Institut

The Perils of Positivism: A Response to Professor Quigley

Professor Quigley\u27s article is a classic demonstration of the perils of positivism. Putting factual errors to one side—and they are numerous—its fatal flaw is jurisprudential. It treats legal rules as if they were machines entirely divorced from their context of history and policy, capable of answering legal questions without thought or deliberation. Quigley is dubious about the proposition that Iraq committed an act of aggression by invading and attempting to annex Kuwait in 1990. He regards Iraqi claims against Kuwait as substantial, even if, in his opinion, they did not quite justify Iraq in seizing and swallowing the country by force. He argues, however, that because the world community has severely punished Iraq for what it decided was a violation of Article 2(4) of the United Nations Charter, it should apply the same remedies against Israel for what Quigley regards as clear-cut Israeli aggression against Egypt in June, 1967. He accomplishes this breath-taking feat of legal legerdemain by assuming that the infallible way—indeed, the only way—to discover whether a state has violated Article 2(4) of the Charter is to determine who fired the first shot. After a thin, questionable, and incomplete review of the events surrounding the opening moments of the Six Day War in June, 1967, Quigley concludes that Israel did indeed fire the first shot, and therefore should be quarantined or bombed and invaded until it purges itself of aggression—at least by evacuating the territories it occupied during the Six Day War. Unless this is done, Quigley concludes, the United States and the United Nations Security Council (Security Council) will stand condemned for applying a double standard in their interpretation and application of the Charter

Ukraine, Nuclear Weapons, and the Future of International Law

Russian president Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has confronted the international community with fateful questions: whether the minimum world public order constructed after World War II is to survive, whether nuclear powers are free to commit aggression, and whether any state that is not an ally of a nuclear power is fair game for attack

Nicaragua: A Surreply to a Rejoinder

If readers can ignore the tone adopted by Messrs. Reichler and Wippman in their rejoinder, they will see that both what the Rejoinder says and what it omits confirm my argument. Messrs. Reichler and Wippman claim that [w]ith certain important exceptions, Nicaragua and the United States agree on many of the rules governing self-defense under international law. \u27 This statement is correct in general, although I find the formulation of the law by Messrs. Reichler and Wippman to be oversimplified and unsophisticated, particularly with regard to state practice. As a result, our differences are more important than our areas of agreement

Nicaragua and the Law of Self-Defense Revisited

For nearly eight years, the Nicaraguan question has been the most heatedly disputed issue of American foreign policy since the end of the Vietnam War. It has focussed the attention of Congress, which continues to consider Administration proposals to provide assistance to the Contras, and the American and Western press. Nicaragua has brought aspects of Nicaraguan-American relations before the International Court of Justice (I.C.J.), and Carlos Tiimermann, Nicaragua\u27s Ambassador to the United States, recently summarized his country\u27s case in this Journal Consciously or unconsciously, participants in the discussion are also addressing the future of world public order and of American foreign policy