Critical International Law: Recent Trends in the Theory of
International Law
Anthony Carty
Introduction
`Critical' international legal studies constitute a so-called post-modern approach to
international law. This is to assert that the discipline is governed by a particular, historically
conditioned discourse which is, in fact, quite simply, the translation onto the international
domain of some basic tenets of liberal political theory. It opposes itself to positivist
international law, as representative of an actual consensus among states. The crucial question is
simply whether a positive system of universal international law actually exists, or whether
particular states and their representative legal scholars merely appeal to such positivist
discourse so as to impose a particularist language upon others as of if were a universally
accepted legal discourse. So post-modernism is concerned to unearth difference, heterogeneity
and conflict as reality in place of fictional representations of universality and consensus.
A crucial `battleground' will be the so-called sources of international law. So, for instance,
a contested question will be whether general customary law does actually refer to an obligatory
consensus among states, a consensus which they regard as productive of effectively
constraining legal rules standing above states. The critical approach to international law
questions such an understanding of the discipline, i.e. as consisting of an empirical search for
actual state consent to effectively constraining norms. Instead the language of international law
has to be understood historically as no more than a subsystem of the discourse of liberal
political theory. The contradictions and incompleteness of international legal discourse can,
therefore, be understood quite easily ­ post-modern theory does not aim to be obfuscating ­ if
one refers to the dilemmas which are well known to the debate which surrounds liberal theory.
Above all, liberal political theory is plagued by the dilemma how autonomous and independent
actors can be brought together in support of or under the rubric of some notion of the common
good, when authority for a definition of that good must remain with the same autonomous and
independent actors.
A major part of this study will be `deconstructionist' in the sense that it will explain what
are believed to be path-breaking studies in the breaking down of consistent and persistent
attempts by positivist international lawyers to avoid the dilemmas at the heart of their subject,
through highly elaborate, apparently technical, recourse to the language of (state) consent as a
representational language. There is a contradiction within international legal practice which
consists in a virtually unending process of reification of the discourse of state consent into
actually existing, constraining rules independent of states, which have only to be identified, for
problems of authority in relations between states to be resolved. In practice this leads to sterile
and acrimonious attempts to `demonstrate' that `the other side' has `consented' to a viewpoint
which one prefers, an elusive exercise, given that the starting point will usually be a conflict of
interest which supposes that neither party is `consenting' to what `the other' wishes.
The critical approach, far from decrying the very existence of international law, allows a
way out of this impasse precisely because it recognises the character of liberalism as a
tradition. It does this by means of two devices. It recognises the absence of a central
international legal order as an impartial point to which state actors can refer, i.e. the simple
meaning to be given to the phrase, `the disappearance of the referent'. At the same time it
2 EJIL (1991) 1
Anthony Carty
favours a mature anarchy in international relations, the recognition of states as independent
centres of legal culture and significance, which have to be understood, in relation to one
another, as opposing to one another very fragile, because inevitably partial, understandings of
order and community.
The role of the international lawyer in such an acutely relativised, self-reflective culture is
now, more than ever, crucial. It is his function to resist phony, reified would be universalist
legal discourse in favour of the recognition of the inevitably restrictive and exclusive nature of
individual state discourses. Above all this calls for the development of a new critical standard
which is concerned to penetrate through the cultural symbols of psuedo-universalisation
thrown up by individual states to assert themselves against one another. It is not the ambition of
the critical international lawyer to substitute another pseudo-impartial legal order, but to
facilitate the development of the process of inter-state/ inter-cultural dialogue and
understanding which may allow a coming together, however temporary and fragile. What is
called for is scholarly work of legal translation, itself attempting to be impartial, to stand
outside the circles of meaning projected by individual states.
A theory of legal translation must begin from the realisation of the very partial,
multilayered and fragmented nature of international society. It must approach this reality from
the basis of the newest insights obtained from legal and cultural anthropology. International
society consists, above all, of opposing and self-differentiating national and
regional/continental cultural traditions, criss-crossing with both religious and commercial
systems, which are more transnational. A tradition is contingent. It depends upon historical and
social circumstances for its existence, its shape and its limits. The difficulty for the
post-modern international lawyer is that `participation' in a tradition will probably be
decisively shaped by a peculiarly Western concept of law which is naturally unsympathetic to
such diversity. It is this concept of law which permeates liberal theory and gives it a peculiar
universalising pretension. In his Anthropologie Juridique Rouland explains how far a monist
western theory of law has worked against pluralism by virtue of its confidence in the idea of the
unitary tradition as such.1 This expresses itself, above all, in the compulsive search for and
construction of universalist language. For instance such language resorts to the apparently
neutral impartiality of impersonal and passive constructions of verbs. At the same time an
apparently universal effect is obtained by resort to indefinite pronouns, indicatives, and, above
all, to mythical models, such as, in the sphere of private law, `le bon pre de famille' which
presupposes the existence of a consensus. The formal rigour of this legal language simply
conceals a consciousness of the conflictual plurality of the real.2
The first stage in the way of the construction of a theory of legal translation has to be the
deconstruction of this universalist compulsion, rooted in the Platonic belief that the human
being tends to unity and to the Christian belief that every kingdom divided against itself must
fall. In fact the cultural choices of each society are largely attributable to the peculiarities of its
history, beliefs etc..3 The task of the legal translator is to search out the roots of the formation
of a consensus on the quality of the law, the quality of juridicity within a society at a particular
point in time. These limits will always be found precisely at that point which the society
considers vital for its cohesion and reproduction. The supreme difficulty is simply that each
society has its own manner of thinking and reflecting on the nature of this juridicity. There is
here intense danger for international society, because each society will be aware of its identity
as differentiated from other societies.4
1 Rouland, 77-78, 84, 94.
2 Rouland, 97-98.
3 Rouland, 396-398.
4 Rouland, 401-405.
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Recent Trends in the Theory of International Law
If law is to take its coherence not from what is imposed from without but from the mutual
attraction of elements within society, the key element of law is not submission but
identification and differentiation.5 The crucial dimension of the pluralism represented by the
transfer of a legal ethnology from traditional societies to modern international society is the
recognition that there is no superior power capable of imposing its will to resolve the dangers
implied by an immanentist theory of law. This is for Rouland a positive development.
Post-modern law turns to the solutions of traditional law, where society affirms itself as made
up of groups which cannot be reduced, the one to the others.6 At the same time the task is
hazardous. A unitary compulsion in law drives to cover over difference and to insist upon the
homogeneity of all experience, resulting in a contrived consensus. However the immanentist
approach sets itself the more perilous task of confronting the fact that for societies existence
depends not merely on awareness of social identity, but also on the exclusion of other societies
as different.
Perhaps it is cultural anthropologists who are most aware of the dangers. Introducing his
Writing Cultures: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography Clifford warns that culture consists
of seriously contested codes and representations. It is inevitable that the texts which they
produce are constructed and artificial. What has to be read is a reaching beyond the texts of
power, resistance, institutional constraint and innovation. As a study of collective
arrangements, ethnography is inevitably actively situated between powerful systems of
meaning.7 The systematic will be exclusive. Clifford defends the view that `...all constructed
truths are made possible by powerful lies of exclusion and rhetoric ... Ethnographic truths are
thus inherently partial-committed and incomplete'. While this may evoke a fear of the collapse
of clear standards of verification `...a rigorous sense of partiality can be a source of
representational tact...'.8
I would insist that each society should have to claim a right of cultural self-determination.
Indeed it should be imposed on it, ironical and apparently inconsistent as this demand may
sound. There should follow simultaneously both an immanent self-critique and a critique of the
Other which can, usually, only exist as self-represented. I have called for what Clifford
describes as fictions of dialogues:
...The potential task of legal doctrine is to reconstruct conflict situations in accordance with
basic principles of understanding, a theory of knowledge based on the development of
argument, rather than a search for objectivity or experience as such. At the very least, this
method is appropriate for conflicts rooted in national cultural differences.9
Clifford explains how these fictional dialogues have the effect of transforming the `cultural'
text into a speaking subject, who sees as well as is seen.10 Despite the subjectivism which has
underlain the tradition of legal idealism, Clifford perceives how dialogical modes do not lead
to hyper self-consciousness or self-absorption. In my view it is the pretension of universalist
liberalism to restrain polyvocality by giving to one voice a pervasive authorial function.
Nonetheless the discovery of the fact of discursive partiality is progressive. It is to recognise
that `...there is no longer any place of overview (mountaintop) from which to map human ways
of life, no Archimedian point from which to present the world. Mountains are in constant
5 Rouland, 404-405.
6 Rouland, 418.
7 Clifford, 2.
8 Clifford, 7.
9 The Decay, 114-115.
10 Clifford, 14.
3
Anthony Carty
motion '11 Clifford represents the same path to post-modernity in cultural anthropology as
does Rouland in legal anthropology when he concludes: `But is there not a liberation, too, in
recognition that no one can write about others any longer as if they were discrete objects or
texts...?'12
I. Recent Deconstuctionist Contributions to the Theory of
International Law and a Post-Modern International Law
I intend the major thrust of the paper to be an analytical presentation of the main themes of the
work of four contemporary international law scholars. In the first instance I will outline the
deconstructivist work of Kennedy, above all in his International Legal Structures. I think this
very difficult work is path-breaking in exposing, by means of an immanent critique, how far
positivist international legal language is, in its own terms, not viable. Kennedy pushes to the
limit the insight that the orthodox legal language, far from being truly positivist, fails to refer to
any concrete legal phenomena or experience. However I will criticize Kennedy as the last
modernist, rather than the first postmodernist, of international law because he stops short of
questioning the context of the discourse which he deconstructs. He does not treat it basically as
an historical conditioned discipline. Nor does he question the uses to which it is put. Instead he
at least appears to treat international legal discourse as an aesthetic achievement. Its very
aimlessness is the mark of its perfection: international law for the sake of international law, a
beautiful exercise in perpetual and `successful' evasion.
In the second instance I will consider Koskenniemi's From Apology to Utopia. This
follows very closely and indeed builds upon the work of Kennedy. Nonetheless he firmly
locates the discourse which he also deconstructs within liberal political discourse. He explains
very lucidly how the techniques of evasion which Kennedy has so painstakingly exposed, are
an inevitable consequence of contradictions within the liberal political project. There is simply
no way to resolve the question of authority within decentralised state structures. There is no
archemedian point from which to judge impartially what is the common good of states. This is
why the positivist techniques for the construction of inter-state consent turn out to be so
spurious. However, in his own terms Koskenniemi's attempts to reconstruct an international
legal order abandon altogether the problem of authority in the legal order in favour of a
free-ranging communicative process which is as shapeless as a post-positivist, and therefore
post-formalist, theory of law is bound to be.
In the third instance I consider works by Kratochwil and Fastenrath. The latter exposes
how far international law lacks credible formal criteria for the identification of law in the sense
of concrete `legal' phenomena. Both attempt to outline how international legal discourse is,
and should be, rooted in a practice or tradition of law. It is this practice, perhaps even custom,
which has come to accord to the relevant participants in the `system' the right to be there. More
importantly, this practice should largely shape, and supposedly confine, the limits of the
discourse used for the purpose of communication. Both Kratochwil and Fastenrath appear to
move well beyond the apparent aimlessness of Kennedy and the formlessness or shapelessness
of Koskenniemi. However relying upon the philosopher MacIntyre, I attempt to expose their
work as reproducing another dilemma common to liberal political theory. Its principles,­
particularly the freedom and equality of autonomous actors,­ are too general to serve as criteria
for the resolution of conflict.
If it is true, as both Fastenrath and Kratchowil believe, that normative principles can only
receive definite meaning in the light of a social practice, nonetheless liberalism cannot simply
11 Clifford, 22.
12 Clifford, 25.
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Recent Trends in the Theory of International Law
save itself from vacuity by turning itself into a tradition. The liberalism of the Enlightenment
intended to break with, to dispense itself from, tradition in favour of a rational autonomy. The
positivist legal scholar cannot both prioritise freedom against a constraining traditional,
customary practice and engage in a rigorous searching of social, i.e. state practice to see
whether it really affords evidence of consent to rules.
So indeed a closer examination of Kratochwil and Fastenrath reveals that they are both still
committed to a transcendental dimension to their concept of the international legal order. A
priori formal categories for the verification of consent are supposed to underlie or be necessary
to the international legal order. Fastenrath, in particular, makes reference to the work of
Verdross and Simma as a generally accepted exposition of this position. In my view this is to
build contradictions between liberalism as a philosophical project and liberalism as a tradition
into international law. They are not compatible. In my view this is precisely such as illusory
project which is open to the relentless deconstruction which Kennedy continues to undertake.
By way of conclusion I propose to offer a post-modern approach to international law which
purports to be embedded exclusively within a widely varied, indeed infinitely complex maze of
conflicting traditions and social practices, all conditioned by particular historical perspectives
and experiences. That is to say there is no pretence that a transcendental method has somehow
produced a sustained social practice which overcomes its formalist vacuity. The only
concession which I make is that I recognise that a key element in such a notion of tradition is
that it is, in its own terms, authoritative and that the international law scholar is engaged by the
conflicting pretensions of these traditions. The task of the international lawyer is, in the words
of MacIntyre, to acquire the skills to engage in what can only be an endless, and not necessarily
fruitful, endeavour to facilitate the harmonious interactions of these traditions, above all
through the medium of translation. I will suggest where these traditions are above all located
and where the international lawyer may possibly look for resources to pursue his task of
undoing the work of Babel.
5
Anthony Carty
II. Kennedy's Deconstruction of International Legal Discourse:
A. The Absent Referent
Perhaps I might introduce Kennedy's work by considering his description of the old, tired
natural law/positivist controversy. His theme is the exclusion of the referents of soft and hard
rhetoric/doctrine. The former is concerned with arguments based on `justice', `equity' etc,
while the latter founds obligation in consent. The difficulty is simply that no objective
standards of justice are accepted in contemporary international society, and yet that same
society is in fact (apart from any indulgence of theoretical interest) not satisfied with law based
upon consent. Kennedy's argument is purely analytical and remains firmly within the legal
texts acceptable to the discipline of international law as at present practiced. He sees hard and
soft rhetoric as successors to positivism and naturalism in terms of their functions, but not in so
far as the one purports to refer to actually demonstrable inter-state consent and the other
appeals to objective normative standards of good and justice. To go so far as to touch upon
such `referents' outside the discourse would be `extremism'.
So `we would equate the struggle to blend hard and soft rhetorics with the dilemma
confronting a theory of international law which is to be neither naturalist nor positivist'.13 To
take one side of the equation, consensual rhetoric seems to reassure the sovereign while
critiquing substantive order, while traditional positivist doctrine sought to contradict the realist
with evidence of practice14 (which supposes a referent). The exercise is ideological in the
sense that it `is for a decisive discourse ­ not a persuasive justification (my emphasis) ­ which
can continually distinguish binding from non-binding norms while remaining open to
expressions of sovereign will (my emphasis)...The result is a discourse of evasion...endlessly
embracing and managing a set of ephemeral rhetorical differences'.15
For instance consider two arguments of the so-called customary law discourse. The first
`soft' doctrine is that universal consent is not necessary since this would prevent states
developing their subjective intentions without being hindered by a recalcitrant or uninterested
minority. The `hard' position which stresses the consent of the specially affected can, in turn,
be reimagined so as to enshrine the just notion that the specially affected are also the most
likely to produce good norms.16 Even clearer is such language as that new states should
consent to be bound by custom by virtue of their participation in the international system in
which they have received the benefits of statehood.17
The difficulty is twofold. How can the majority bind the entire community ­ an issue which
liberal theory prefers to play down with doctrines of presumed consent? And secondly, also
much more seriously, what can self-imposed obligation mean? Surely the very idea of
self-imposed obligation contradicts the implication of obligation that it is an imposition? So
critical international law reintroduces the question whether international law is binding, not in
the form that it is a question which must be asked, but rather in the form that it has always been
there and constantly repressed and deferred. While one might take a `constructive' view and
say that the immensely flexible structure of international legal argument allows an open
weighing of the merits of issues of justice and freedom,18 Kennedy prefers to stress that the
13 International Legal Structures ILS, 106.
14 ILS, 107.
15 ILS, 107.
16 ILS, 46.
17 ILS, 50.
18 E.g., pacta sunt servanda and rebus sic stantibus in treaty law, ILS, 1987, 50.
6
Recent Trends in the Theory of International Law
discipline is more interested in rhetorical strategies of closure,19 i.e. avoiding these choices by
appearing to satisfy criteria of both positive international law and a naturalist perspective. So
Kennedy sees the discipline as recognising that for states individual declarations of legal/state
will are not enough. They exist nowhere. `Intent alone cannot support the idea of
obligation/...If any system of good faith is to endure states cannot remain free to change their
minds once having given their word'.20 A purely hard position (the instance is the French
declaration in the Nuclear Tests Case (1).) `could as easily devour the binding nature of
undertakings,' i.e. by France's auto-interpretation of its obligation,21 the fact of which is also a
fundamental feature of the international legal order. Deferral and exclusion are necessary to
skirt continuously away from the perimeters of this system. The precise function of closure is
to hide the fact that a consensual (contractarian) theory of legal obligation cannot resolve a
clear absence of consent between equal sovereign states.
So the alternative is to appear to bring the opposing camps together without resorting to a
non-existing objective order of justice in which the `place' for each must be somehow already
allocated. This can only be done through an intellectual sleight of hand. There is no objective
foundation to which to appeal. There is only the series of independent states subject to no
superior authority. Kennedy illustrates this thesis with the Continental Shelf Case (2). The
Court could have accepted the argument that a natural prolongation argument had to be
accompanied by actual usage, a hard, consensual approach. It rejected this in favour of the
principled nature of prolongation ­ a soft doctrine.22 However it rejects the equidistant
principles as insufficiently grounded in German consent, i.e. it is not a part of the principle of
natural prolongation. 23 So by rejecting two proposed interpretations of the natural
prolongation argument, the Court creates a sense of movement. It `preserves the soft integrity
of the principle ­ without creating a preference for either interpretation'.24 It seems that
Kennedy wants to stress that without this `movement' the Court would have to admit that it is
occupying a high ground from which it could afford some `objectivist' interpretation. The
difficulty is that this leads the Court into repeated recourse to what Kennedy calls a `purely
consensual rhetoric', without the firm empirical evidence to support it. At the same time, as
Kennedy points out, the discussion is unmoored from systemic considerations. It is a
fundamental weakness of liberal political theory that sovereign autonomy and consent, as
principles are unable to generate any particular rule.25 `The result was the anti-climactic
conclusion that the parties must `agree' to an apportionment which must be in accord with
equitable principles' etc'.26 It then outlines a whole series of `relevant considerations'.27
B. Modernity, Post-Modernity and International Law
The most distinctive feature of the crisis of modern, legal philosophy is the conflation of
subject and object, the knower and the known, and, with it, any assured legal method or
technique. For instance the deconstruction of legal texts through some undefined,
`spontaneous' exercise in immanent critique, assumes, even if it does not express the fact
19 ILS, 53.
20 ILS, 60/61.
21 ILS, 62.
22 ILS, 91.
23 ILS, 93.
24 ILS, 93.
25 ILS, 94.
26 ILS, 97.
27 ILS, 98.
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Anthony Carty
clearly, that there is no more than the knower to consider. The `known' is simply what he
produces or participates in. In the context of international legal discourse this means simply a
language which mirrors the ontological anxieties of its subjects. States, just as much as
individuals, start from attachment to their autonomy, but feel compelled to search for external
validation `(perhaps by implication from `objective' facts)'.28 Kennedy is addressing patterns
of illusion. `The possibility of an external normative order grounding their equality and mutual
respect suggests the appeal of soft sources... In order to fulfill the desire for an autonomous
system of normative sources, argument...includes strands associated both with normative
autonomy and normative authority...' The system works, but in an apparently self-deceptive
way. `Sources argument...pursues a rhetorical strategy of inclusion because it manages the
relations between these two rhetorical strands so as to `solve' the problem of sources doctrine
as a whole.'.29
Kennedy considers resort to one or other type of rhetoric as capricious in terms of the
supposed rigour of existing sources doctrine, unable to avoid internal contradiction. So
positivists who prefer treaties, raise the soft norm, pacta sunt servanda to a new status,
extending the validity of treaty based norms to those who have not explicitly consented on the
grounds that treaty following is just. Naturalists corrupt the softness of custom and general
principles by arguing that these most accurately represent the way in which sovereigns want to
be treated, and that treaties can be reinterpreted as an expression of community judgement
about the justice of norms. For instance one might consider the special status accorded to the
Kellog-Briand Pact or the UN Charter.30 Kennedy perceives how the discussion is not, in the
practice of the discipline, pushed to the point that sources discourse actually touches upon the
modernist/positivist evidences of consent or the naturalist's objective values of justice. In this
sense sources discourse appears to take on the quality of a disembodied essence engaged in an
endless movement between two objects or referents which it does not dare or even intend to
reach.31
Kennedy's main insight is to understand rhetoric as Echo. He distinguishes between soft
and hard rhetoric. Soft rhetoric refers to any argument which relies upon some extraconsensual
notion of the good or the just.32 Under the existing regime of legal argument it is considered
always possible for the `other' state to respond that among equal sovereigns `justice' must be
negotiated. The defender of a soft norm can be forced to
20 defend it in hard terms, i.e. by demonstrating consent. Kennedy concludes that `because
neither set of arguments can be convincing by itself and neither can trump the other, argument
within this structure could go on endlessly without resolution.'.33 In my view the strength of
this argument, although it is not itself stated explicitly, is to expose the lack of an ontological
basis to international legal argument. Its underlying nihilism will appear when soft and hard
rhetorical arguments are pushed to their limits. For this reason Kennedy engages in the
virtually psycho-analytical insinuation that `argument is not so much a matter of logic as it is a
practice of continued movement between these two rhetorics which creates an image or feeling
of resolution... (D)octrines must include them both by limiting each so as to render them
compatible. Without this careful limitation of extreme visions of hard and soft, doctrines are in
constant danger of dissolution'.34
28 ILS, 31.
29 ILS, 32.
30 ILS, 34-36.
31 ILS, 37.
32 ILS, 29.
33 ILS, 31.
34 ILS, 32-33.
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Recent Trends in the Theory of International Law
C. The Deconstructionist as `the last Modernist'
Surely the support for this understanding of the function of rhetoric remains modernist in its
allure because it purports to treat legal argument as self-regulating, separate from the study of
social, historical or psychological factors. All arguments are treated in a formal way, as merely
parts of an argumentative structure.35 The question might be put whether deconstructive
critical scholars are offering the allure of an exceptional tortuous and rigourous entry into an
esoteric legal world, beyond mundane appearances. Exceptional intellectual discipline will
yield extraordinary, if incummunicable, insights. The proponents of this school do not present
a postmodern international law as a waste land. For instance to speak with enthusiasm, as does
Kennedy, of tracing the references which one doctrine makes to another, the repetitions therein
and the self-sufficiency of the rhetoric, might appear reassuring to the profession if Kennedy is
only to conclude that `the result of this effort is a new appreciation for the complexity, strength
and self-sufficiency of the international legal order.'.36
Kennedy does appear to consider international law language, as he describes it, as, in some
sense, acceptable. By avoiding `extremes' the authority of sources discourse is preserved, by
both binding states against their interest and not presuming away a diversity of interest.37 So
he clearly distinguishes this exercise from pure rhetoric, i.e. a persuasive technique. The
`game' (my emphasis) is maintained through a hesitancy about extremes. A crucial
post-modern concept now appears. The `abyss' (my emphasis) is avoided because both hard
and soft rhetoric have their referents excluded by sources doctrine, thereby preserving the
autonomy, and therefore authority, of sources discourse (abstract/formalist/modernist), but
also referring the international lawyer away from sources discourse itself (presumably not
thereby inviting too rigorous a probing of its contradictions) in order to (and here Kennedy
appears simply to accept the enterprise as ongoing) establish `a substantive legal fabric which
remains comfortable (my emphasis) with sovereign authority'.
Kennedy considers sources discourse supplemental in the sense that it is `neither itself
authoritative nor descriptive of an authority located elsewhere'. 38 So he equates the
supplement with ideology when he writes `doctrines about sources seem derivative of a
systematic vision (note the choice of word) articulated first in doctrines of process or substance
­ where for example the `sovereign' whose consent will ground a source will be defined'.39
There is no implication that this supplement is to turn upon the dominant and operative
structure and, of itself, undermine it. Instead, as a magical tinsel it validates and supplants(?) a
constellation (choice of word) of sovereign authorities. So Kennedy's argument is that there is
no direct or even systemic link between doctrines of sources, personality (which he calls
process) and substantive law, e.g. the law of the sea. He begins his discussion of `process' by
setting up `Participation' doctrine as an open-ended response to state authority (which is
already there). Jurisdiction doctrine is to be regulatory, structuring international life by
defining the boundaries of various authorities, which are also already in place.40 Both are in
place in the sense that Kennedy has already decided without explanation that he is not
concerned with the context in which arguments are made, nor with what he calls their political
and interpretative milieu.41 This amounts to a serious internal contradiction for Kennedy's
thought, because he does not articulate the assumptions behind his own crucial exclusion or
35 A/U, XXIV.
36 ILS, 7-8.
37 ILS, 103-104.
38 ILS, 104.
39 ILS, 105.
40 ILS, 117.
41 ILS, 7.
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Anthony Carty
effective denial of the existence of the referent (in effect, the actual state) upon which his entire
system depends. The `game goes on'.
So Participation doctrine WILL show how statehood both depends upon a series of criteria
such as territory or recognition and upon a set of systematically registered assertions of
sovereign authority such as recognition or capacity to enter into foreign relations.42 Quite
apart from the repetition which this statement presents, which I do not think matters, the
statement merrily assumes that closures are going to be achieved with the appropriate rhetoric.
He will not say for whom and with what effect. As with sources doctrine, there is an acute
awareness that discourse must not appear to reach a `logical' conclusion, because such
extremism will reveal the absence of the referents which might appear to be supposed by the
language of the texts. Yet the statement `all is text' does not mean that Kennedy is going to
introduce us to a historical tradition.
His notion of time is both static and cyclical. It is a matter of `elaboration of the rules of the
game in a way which permits new substantive results but does not reflect merely the pattern of
existing sovereign interest'.43 This entails a dichotomy between the objective and the
subjective. These two rhetorical tendencies reflect self-definition and action in the system, and
are associated with sovereign authority and equality,44 already given factors for Kennedy. The
associative scheme is fluid in that it reflects (his emphasis) sovereign equality (the objective)
and ratifies it (the subjective)'.45 That which is the object of this exercise is already there and
yet is somehow the focal or referent point for two directions in a process (the objective and the
subjective) which must not be allowed to reach a logical conclusion (which is extremism)
because the process itself does not have referents.
In my view what is at issue here is not unclear. For instance with respect to recognition
doctrine, one speaks of the constitutive and declaratory approaches. There is supposed to be a
repeated difference between the two.46 This should reflect the fact that neither self-definition
nor community definition are accepted as conclusively authoritative. Both views are repeated
inconsistently. He reanimates a lively academic debate out of texts and treatises, while
underlying the exercise is the realisation that the so-called repetitive dialectic simply reflects
the absence of a means of resolving the difference. The equivocal relationship between the two
rhetorical devices is effective because it appears to meet the demands of simultaneous
openness and closure and draws back from these in a significant measure. There follows, in my
view, a key declaration `...Thus, for example, although the attempt to make participation or
jurisdiction depend upon the `real' configurations of power places process in some tension
with formal assertions of sovereign will, it does so in a way which which protects the discourse
from having to assert its own normative theory'.47
A question is whether it is Kennedy who is avoiding the possibility that the discourse
which he analyses has itself a referent, an historical tradition of international legal scholarship.
Is this not all it means to say that the subjective and objective exist in relation, as contradictory
opposites.48 The difficulty of bringing together the ideas of sovereign authority and social
interaction is surely compounded by Kennedy's prior refusal to accept that either could have a
42 ILS, 118.
43 ILS, 121.
44 ILS, 121-122.
45 ILS, 122.
46 ILS, 123.
47 ILS, 125-126.
48 ILS, 125.
10
Recent Trends in the Theory of International Law
referent, confining himself quite simply to the contemporary literature.49 To say that `these
two approaches need to overrule one another in order to allocate between themselves the twin
project of process discourse'50is in a trivial sense true simply in that the legal scribblers must
`keep going'. However it is also true in the sense which Kennedy has already explained with
respect to sources doctrine, that while the project of subjectivity/ objectivity can be defined ­ it
is to protect determinacy and to maintain openness ­ there is in fact no way of achieving the
project, since the necessary referents are absent.
So one is left with the ultra-fragile fact of whatever life is left to the antagonism between
the two desires, for autonomy and for objective support. Kennedy is quite correct to say these
desires pull back from making difficult choices.51 The choice is simple enough to state: whose
sovereignty will be upheld, an exercise which requires an externally supplied substantive
theory independent of the will of the two contestants, about when recognition is permissible
and what effects it may have.52 Nonetheless it seems to me much simpler to accept literally
that the answer does not at present exist and that the soft/hard rhetoric described by Kennedy
does not in fact bring us to it. Indeed, as he points out, that is not the intention. Instead Kennedy
appears to enjoy going towards and away from this destination by engaging in a rhetoric of
constant deferral.53
I would not go as far as to say that the `word spells' are of Kennedy's creation. His own
work has a referent, the writings of our colleagues. So for instance with respect to recognition it
is the basic conundrum of political liberalism which is stated. Recognition of another state can
seem the fulfilment of sovereign authority as much as of sovereign equality. There is anxiety
introduced by the question whether international law does or does not equalize absolute
authority. Authority and equality seem to require each other, seem to be associable, and yet the
tension continues without resolution.54 In my view this is a profound insight into the character
of contemporary international legal argument. However it assumes that we are caught in the
logjam of political liberalism. I prefer a stronger statement of the same thesis, that the
distinction between doctrine and practice cannot be held up, that international lawyers become
international law. A critical theory of knowledge holds that it is the international lawyer's
categories of knowledge which define his `reality'. This is why the enterprise can only be
continued within its own terms through further reflection of an introspective nature..55
Otherwise it is a cul de sac.
III. The Debt of International Law to Liberal Political Theory
Kennedy is followed very closely by Koskenniemi in his study The Structure of International
Legal Argument: From Apology to Utopia.(A/U) He stresses how far the evasive rhetoric of the
contemporary practice of the discipline serves to continue a guarantee of the professional
autonomy which comes from the modernist/formalist approach to law. He is conscious of the
desire of the lawyers to continue their professional identities as something other than moral and
social theorists.56 One clear assumption, which allows debate to remain within doctrine, is that
49 ILS, 127.
50 ILS, 128.
51 ILS, 133.
52 ILS, 137.
53 ILS, 137.
54 ILS, 145.
55 Decay of International Law, Decay, 129-131.
56 A/U, XIII.
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Anthony Carty
meaning is relational, so that knowing a language is to be capable of operating these
differentiations. International legal language sees each discursive topic (e.g. sovereignty) to be
constituted by a conceptual opposition. Indeed the opposition is what the topic is about.
Disagreement persists because it is impossible to priorize one term over the other. These terms
turn out to depend upon one another..57 In this case argument consists of a process of
differentiation, that justification of a position or rule consists of establishing a system of
differentiations. There follows a very strong statement, which is surely brings to mind the Irish
playwright Samuel Beckett: `We cannot make a preference between alternative arguments
because they are not alternatives at all; they rely on the correctness of each other.58
I think this theory of international legal grammar can be demonstrated by reference to, for
instance, instance, the structure of Simma's study `International Crimes: Injuries and
Countermeasures'/ Simma). It rests precisely upon a process of potentially indefinite,
conceptual differentiation. There is at once a juxtaposing of bilateralism, that obligation is a
matter of relations between pairs of individual states, and a community-interest paradigm in
which respect for certain fundamental values is not left to the free disposition of states
individually but is a matter of concern to all states.59 The question is how to define or delineate
an international obligation so essential for the protection of fundamental interests of the
international community that its breach is recognised as a crime by the community as a
whole.60 Simma discusses the push and pull to and from bilateralism, resisting both ends of the
pole.61 Indeed at the risk of appearing frivolous, I am tempted to argue that the difference
between Simma and Koskenniemi at this point is one of attitude to, rather than appreciation of,
the nature of the phenomenon. Simma concludes his presentation of the problematique with
the words: `What is needed, therefore in the current codification effort is a reconciliation of
what the present author would call the `natural bilateralism' in international law with those
requirements of `community interest' which modern international experience has shown to be
necessary'.
The discussion follows exactly the lines suggested by Kennedy and Koskenniemi. For
instance the very idea of obligations on the part of third states in the case of an international
violation is seen as remarkable; 62 individual countermeasures go too far; international
adjudication/ or UN Chapter VI/VII handling of the question of justifying action is utopian
(Koskenniemi) and amounts to indefinite deferral (Kennedy); 63 yet some further
differentiation (Simma's word) is essential if one is to move beyond the unitary regime of
`all-State' reactions to `international crimes'.64 Simma states the problem in terms of a
dilemma: how to overcome bilateralism without departing from the horizontal system of
correlative rights and duties, i.e. a matter of `the inherent limits of such a theory'.65 Yet Simma
set himself the positive task of balancing the two factors.66 He recommends, as the form of
differentiation of which he speaks, in terms of hypothetical imperatives of lawyers's tasks,
separate regimes of legal consequences, complete with adequate dispute settlement
57 A/U, XX-XXI.
58 A/U, XXI.
59 Simma, 283, 285.
60 Simma, 291.
61 Simma, 393-4.
62 Simma, 305.
63 Simma, 306-8.
64 Simma, 109.
65 Simma, 310.
66 Simma, 311.
12
Recent Trends in the Theory of International Law
procedures, for every international crime.67 This is a matter of `extreme bilateralism' being
`tempered at least in theory, by the manifestation of community interest'.68 It might simply be
objected that the international lawyer has a choice between an arbitrary preference for one horn
of the dilemma ­ which he can be sure his colleagues will reject ­, or a deferral of the issue to
another forum, i.e. in this case that more thorough investigation of the precise requirements of
each individual crime to be stated `with utmost precision'.69
In my view Koskenniemi locates the dilemmas which Kennedy teases much more
explicitly in liberal political theory. Indeed international law simply reproduces them without
adding anything. On the one hand we seem incapable of conceptualizing the State or whatever
liberties it has without reflecting on the social relations which surround it. The sphere of liberty
of a member of society must, by definition, be limited by those of others, which means we
cannot simply rely upon the self-definition of the members of their liberties. Yet we cannot
derive the State completely from its social relations and its liberty from an external normative
perspective without losing the State's individuality as a nation and the justification for its claim
to independence and self determination.70 The issues of recognition, jurisdiction and territory
considered by Kennedy71 all fall within this ambit, which is itself nothing more than the
contractarian dilemma first constituted by Hobbes, as so clearly presented by Koskenniemi.
The dynamic of ascending/descending movement has from the start served as the sleight of
hand which hides the fact that contractarian foundations for political liberalism rest, in effect,
neither upon empirically demonstrable consent, nor upon a consensually grounded legal order
which is capable of being sufficiently determinate to overcome the subjectivism of the liberal
theory of values. The liberal/modern paradigm supposes that a belief in a natural, pre-existing
normative code leaves free and equal individuals with ends that differ and conflict.72 In the
liberal interpretation, social order can only be justified with reference to individual ends, but
not each individual's can be respected. So one has to suppose that `real' ends of individuals
coalesce with the existence of a constraining social order. This is supposedly an ascending,
therefore consensual order. At the same time this order is seen to make possible, against
individual dissenters, a theory of objective interests. This is a descending order.73 It is, of
course, something which is `convincing' only if kept moving, between the bottom where it
would have to be shown that all have consented, and the top, where it would have to be clear
that one was confronted with utterly unambiguous, objective standards. As neither is possible,
the illusion is maintained by movement. It is this very precise function which Kennedy has
consigned to the word `rhetoric'.
There is an additional and elusive feature to this process which is essential to the formalism
and abstraction of law, to the ambition to create an order beyond political interest. Knowledge,
and therefore legal knowledge, does not relate to ideas and facts themselves, but, a
(representational) meaning which might be discovered in their name. Knowledge is a social
product. So knowledge can only be established through a knowledge-producing process in a
meaning-generative (name-giving) consensus in the State.74 In this context law, as an ideal, is
that which has been consensually produced, through the state, but which consists of complete
67 Simma, 314.
68 Simma, 315.
69 Simma, 315.
70 A/U, 193.
71 And also by Koskenniemi, A/U, 192-263.
72 A/U, 58, 60.
73 A/U, 62.
74 A/U, 55.
13
Anthony Carty
and logically organised wholes, beyond the subjectivity of morality and politics.75 This is the
ideal which legal method sets out to attain. It is fundamentally flawed because full consent is
never there and so there is simply no sense in the attempt to attain objectivity. It could only be
a harmonized version of the totality of individual ends.
Koskenniemi does suggest an alternative to `objective' knowledge of legal obligation. He
proposes a `foundationless', hermeneutic, sometimes called perspectivism. It affords a context
in which to put the question whether the transition demanded is too great a break with the
professional practice of modernist formalism. Is it the case that the `post-modern' international
lawyer can be more than eclectic in the sense that he puts together a capricious, subjective
collage by way of supposedly persuasive argument. Koskenniemi recognises that we appear
trapped between the subject's construction of objects (knowledge or obligation based upon
consent) and the subject's dependence upon a pre-existing framework of ideas and facts
(definition of the subject by the legal order etc). He is aware that now a new wave of
`anti-foundationalist' philosophers are wanting to do away with the object/subject distinction
or have reformulated objectivity so as to relate to the ways whereby agreement is reached or
the frame of mind of persons engaged in knowledge-production.76 If the subject/object/legal
action trichotomy disappears then along with it goes the need for a formal concept of
state/international legal order/legal action. If sources discourse is taken to mean the legal
action which maintains the relation of the state to the international legal order
(object/objectivity) it has been seen how the state appears to create the objectivity which
founds it and to be limited and directed by that objectivity. The whole `cult' of formalism and
abstraction is capricious since there is no way to choose between the opposing categories. Yet
once they are abandoned there is no need to define the state in terms of the doctrine of
jurisdiction, itself a formal device to delimit the state from other `states' and from the
`international legal order' (viz. the objective).
If what is needed is a social theory which avoids reductionism we need a perspective on
international legal personality which allows us to `explore the embeddedness of facts and ideas
in each other'.77 The question remains what to take as a starting point. If it is accepted that
language is not representational but interpretative, so that the world is constructed through
language,78 the question still remains: with what language will international lawyers begin. A
linguistic thesis would be that the sense of expressions is determined from within language
itself, from the relations into which the expressions of language have organised themselves.79
The difficulty, especially clear in Kennedy's analysis, is that, in so far as this is to be based
upon the present language of the discipline of international law, the exercise will be sterile.
Instead Koskenniemi suggests, to my mind, that the crucial question is not `with what
language' but `with whom'. Given the indeterminancy of international legal language, we have
no means to compel or to convince our opponent `...unless we are both ready to enter into an
open-minded discussion about the justice of adopting particular interpretations' (in which case,
of course, there is no certainty that we shall agree in the end)(my emphasis).80 What will
appear intolerable to the lawyer is to embark upon a course/method(?) which does not
guarantee an authoritative resolution. Yet the key to a hermeneutic has to be the subject/person
of the exercise, as indeed the key to its shadow/ deconstruction, has to be the denial of the
75 A/U, 67.
76 A/U, 462.
77 A/U, 462-3.
78 A/U, 469.
79 A/U, 474.
80 A/U, 474.
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Recent Trends in the Theory of International Law
subject/person. Of course the irony of this exercise, as we will see much later, may be whether
this is to reintroduce the subject/object dichotomy in another form.
There is a certain difficulty with Koskenniemi's hermeneutic, in so far as the
subject/person as such is not so clearly defined as the process. He stresses the notion of
embeddedness of norms in institutions and practice. A critical theory can engage in a two
dimensional dialectic, in which one `renounces the presumption of the existence of an external
rationality in which all possible conflicts would have been solved...with a unique (legal)
technique.' Normative problem-solving is a practice of attempting to reach the most acceptable
solution in the particular circumstances of the case, a conversation about what to do.81 Yes, but
with and between whom? He does state as his goal `decreasing domination and increasing the
sense of an authentic community between disagreeing social agents'.82 Yet who and where are
these social agents? He does stress that statehood is merely an expression to silence voices
crying out for the realisation of economic and spiritual values, while individuals do relate to
one another in communal ties that go beyond individual atomism. Yet is there not an ethereal
lightness of touch in asserting that the reality of these communal ties is grounded in their
attaching such importance to them? 83 Who are They? As a `postmodern',
`anti-foundationalist' Koskenniemi is sure that there is no `deep-structural' logic or
meta-narrative (for instance replacing the state with supposedly more natural forms of human
organisation such as national or ethnic groups). Yet to speak of having to face mutually
incommensurable goods as if this were a form of classical tragedy, and to call for respect for
the existence of conflicting ideals of social organization `by seeking to secure the revisability
of each agreed arrangement' is, as Koskenniemi says, `an argument which will remain
indeterminate'.84 Is this more helpful than Kennedy's fascination with a legal discourse which
disperses itself into an unending play of conceptual oppositions?
Instead I see no difficulty in simply recognising the institutional, cultural (national) and
ideological dimensions of the state.. The question is to understand the role of each in achieving
a `mature anarchy' in international relations.85 In my view there is no difficulty, in terms of the
most rudimentary social theory, in jettisoning formalist approaches to legal
subjectivity/personality. As a state's population can exist without it, so the state is more a
metaphysical entity, in the sense of an idea held in common by a group of people. While it is
possible that the idea be so weak that the state becomes a mere institution in which the elite
commands the machinery of government, it is the community's idea of itself, e.g. its
republicanism, its ethnic nationalism, which defines its notion of its national security, the
foundation of its relations with others. The sliding scale between the idea and the institution
can be assessed if not measured.86
It is true that such a perspective is multi-dimensional and fragments international relations.
For instance economic and bureaucratic elites may stress the importance of science,
technology and the predictability of international transactions. Cultural nationalists and
ideologists will stress the relativity, the perpetually approximate, and the dialectic of
repression and liberation, within and between groups. There is no single principle from which
to measure the weight of the variables; nor is there a first foundation principle which might
81 A/U, 482/6.
82 A/U, 489.
83 A/U, 499.
84 A/U, 500.
85 Decay, 113.
86 Decay, 7.
15
Anthony Carty
allow one to return to a `final point' which grounds the validity of each factor being
considered.87 It has simply to be
38 appreciated that formalism in such a context will be exclusionary. Resort to fundamentalist
norms, such as `the consent of states' is arbitrary. For instance it is known that the concept of
general custom has encrusted upon it an aesthetic perspective on national culture which is
traditional (in the anthropological sense), not voluntarist. It should, seen positively, invite
attempts at a hermeneutic of cultural interpretation. Whether these can resolve conflict is part
of the great drama of hermeneutics.88
IV. (Re)Constructions of a Liberal Tradition of International Law
The anti-foundationalist legal theories which have just been described would attempt to
overcome the now acknowledged indeterminacy of legal norms while accepting the absence of
an authoritative umpire in most international conflicts. However, for some liberal theorists,
who do acknowledge the problem of the indeterminacy of legal norms, their desire for a
resolution of this uncertainty leads them back again to logical hypotheses about the necessity
of a `world' sovereign/ state and from this to reifications of supposedly existing, positive
international legal structures. Liberal theorists are unable to engage directly in the concrete
anti-foundationalist hermeneutic which Koskenniemi has suggested and which I intend to
elaborate further in my conclusion. They draw back from their own exposure of the
indeterminacy of the basic structures of the liberal international legal order by asserting that
this indeterminacy is relieved through the practice of the community which gives material
substance to these structures, which structures are themselves also supposedly grounded in the
same practice. The outcome is that various otherwise very advanced critiques of the orthodox
view of the international legal order fail to penetrate beyond what is rightly perceived as the
reification of liberal political theory into supposedly actual legal structures. They draw back
from what they fear to be the nihilism of their own analysis and claim that the self-same legal
structures constitute the core of the practice of states. They have to add that there is not a direct
line of compelling logical deduction from such general structures to their application, but still
claim that somehow the practice is justified as a rational/practical interpretation of the general
structures by those who have to be engaged in making them `work'.
This is simply the outcome of a dilemma which is at the centre of any attempt to turn a
rationalist theory into a tradition. Liberalism is anti-traditional. It does not claim an authority
which rests upon social practice. Therefore one cannot overcome the indeterminacy of
liberalism by turning it into a practice. If this is attempted the outcome will merely be an
inevitable, compulsive tendency on the part of the theorist to assert that the basic structures of
liberalism are already a social practice. The energy of the `liberal traditionalist' will be devoted
to demonstrating this, and yet, at the same time, he will be left with a social practice which is
itself indeterminate.
A. The Dilemma of Liberalism as a Tradition
How should it be that it is only social practice, the value consensus of socially established
entities, which ensures that the basic structures of liberal legality can be assured of a definite
content? I am following, as does Koskenniemi, the historical criticism of liberalism made by
MacIntyre in After Virtue (A/V). The crisis of liberal thought (I would prefer the word Decay)
comes with the realisation, now very widespread and represented in this section by Fastenrath
87 Decay, 113.
88 Decay, 114.
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Recent Trends in the Theory of International Law
and Kratochwil, that `those forms of human behaviour which presuppose notions of some
ground to entitlement, such as the notion of a right, always have a highly specific and socially
local character...'.89 On its own this proposition might appear unproblematic. Yet this is to
forget the whole purpose of the liberal, modern project of the Enlightenment. As MacIntyre
indicates, the newly autonomous agent was supposed to be able to find rational justifications
for his moral allegiances without resort to the external authority of traditional morality. Yet the
price for this liberation has been the loss of any authoritative content for the would-be moral
utterances of the newly autonomous agent.90
It is MacIntyre who states simply what it has been the ambition of Kennedy and
Koskenniemi to demonstrate for the discipline of international law. The function of practical
reasoning in liberal philosophy is to provide a semblance of rationality to a modern political
process in which, in practice, appeals to rights and principles of utility are completely
incommensurable. `The mock rationality of the debate conceals the arbitrariness of the will and
power at work in its resolution'.91 In MacIntyre's view it is in this very limited and
unpromising sense that liberalism has become a tradition. In Whose Justice? Which
Rationality? he continues this argument. Liberal argument cannot appeal to a material standard
of the common good. So focus turns to the manner in which arguments are presented and the
process by which they are weighed. This second level `presupposes that the procedures and
rules which govern such tallying and weighing are themselves the outcome of rational debate
of quite another kind, that at which the principles of shared rationality have been identified by
philosophical enquiry'. The liberal tradition consists precisely, in MacIntyre's view, in the
social embodiment of this exercise as a continuous debate which is `perpetually inconclusive
but nonetheless socially effective in suggesting that if the relevant set of principles has not yet
been finally discovered, nonetheless their discovery remains a central goal of the social
order'.92
Since Kant, liberalism has been concerned to elaborate a form of transcendental reason, a
series of analytical propositions which define the conditions for rational moral choice which
must bind moral actors if they are to be and to remain moral actors. This argument does not
assert that there are any such actors, nor that people may not choose to be other than moral
actors. However the idea of a moral/normative order is said to require these conditions. In my
view this transcendental project suffers from an inherent contradiction concerning its
ontological status, i.e. in what sense can it be said to exist. The modern positivist/ formalist
international legal order is acutely affected by the drive to assert the minimum conditions for a
liberal international legal order and to assert, at the same time, that these conditions are met.
The argument advanced here is that the root cause of this contradictory drive is the awareness
of the indeterminate content and lack of authoritativeness of the project and the hope that
concrete practice will resolve, or has resolved, these difficulties.
Before considering at length the work of Fastenrath and Kratochwil I will offer to illustrate
the operation of this dilemma in one theoretical explanation of the foundations of international
law. Verdross and Simma demonstrate amply how far this language has been taken over into
international law. The UN Charter is to be seen as a positivising of the Kantian ideal, that states
recognise their security rests not on their own power or independent legal existence, but upon a
great league which is a united power (Macht) and upon the decision set by a law which
expresses a united will (und von der Entscheidung nach Gesetzen des vereinigten Willens).
89 A/V, 67.
90 A/V, 68.
91 A/V, 71.
92 W/J/W/R, 343-344.
17
Anthony Carty
This is positivised in the sense that it is not a mere idea but is actually recognised by states.93
Yet it is precisely this distinction between idea and positive law which remains elusive in such
analysis and which it is a major part of the task of theorists of the `liberal tradition' to explore.
Verdross and Simma explain that the characteristic of modern law ­ since 1648 and the
definitive removal of the Papacy and the Empire ­ is that law rests upon a coordinated
consensus. Yet they also insist that relations between states are only possible when they
recognise certain basic principles as satisfying their needs.94 The difficulty is the ontological
status of such a proposition. It appears to me that Verdross and Simma are saying that it is an
idea which is analytically integral to the idea of international law, while at the same time they
wish to claim that it is something states actually accept. So they say that no state submits to a
power above itself, but only accepts subordination to the international law based upon
interstate consensus. This is the meaning of sovereignty in international law.95 The purpose of
this argument is to overcome the liberal objection to one state subordinating itself to another.96
For instance, coming to the distinction between ius dispositivum and ius cogens, Verdross and
Simma say that while most of the law is made up of the former, no community could exist
unless principles in the later category are recognised.97 The question I present is whether these
arguments are not in fact analytical and transcendental in the Kantian sense.
Verdross and Simma stress that international law is not based upon a formal treaty or
general custom, but upon a formless consensus (formlosen Konsenses), again based upon
reciprocity, whereby states have subordinated themselves to definite norms which make up the
constitution of the non-organised community of states. In my view we have here a Kantian
statement of an analytical/transcendental character. They are refering to the norms which are
assumed by the process of consensus itself `...da diese Normen die Voraussetzungen der
weiteren Erzeugung des VR bilden'.98 They deny firmly that they are dealing with doctrinal
ideas, and yet proceed to affirm that it is here a matter of `...ein Gefüge originärer Normen,
deren Geltung von den Staaten selbst als Grundlage des von ihnen einvernehmlich erzeugten
VR vorausgesetzt'.99
In my view the status of this argument is even clearer when they refutes the thesis of
Arangio-Ruiz that the existence of the state is a mere fact. This overlooks, in the view of
Verdross and Simma, that a mere inter-individual law between private persons is impossible.
Rights and law always presuppose that a legal order is standing over the individual and binding
him. One has to distinguish a consensus between states from the norm standing above them
which declares that the agreement reached by consensus is binding.100
At present the liberal tradition is committed to elaborating the problematic outlined by
Verdross and Simma. It may seem rather strong to follow the argument of MacIntyre that the
very object of the exercise is to engage in a pretence of rationality so as to conceal the `real'
forces at work in international society. However there would be some substance in his
complaints if two assertions were accepted. The first is that there are evident contradictions in
the liberal project. The second is that these contradictions are well known, and yet there seems
to be no loss of enthusiasm to continue with the enterprise. The contradictions have to do with
93 Universelles Völkerrecht:Theorie u. Praxis, U/V, 17.
94 U/V 20.
95 U/V, 29.
96 U/V, 33.
97 U/U, 40-41.
98 U/V, 59.
99 U/V, 59-60.
100 U/V, 60.
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Recent Trends in the Theory of International Law
the impossibility of founding an international order exclusively on consent alone, and, at the
same time, the impossibility of completing the inadequacy of consent with any metaphysical
foundation which itself is not grounded in consent. That would be incompatible with the liberal
project. Hence `liberal tradition' tries to complete consent by having resort to
analytical/transcendental enquiries into the presuppositions of a legal order based upon
consent. It is this avenue which becomes purely formal and abstract, without determinate
content. It serves as a tradition only in the sense that it serves to censor and exclude any other
tradition which does not accept its agenda for discussion, a point which I wish to take further in
my conclusion.
B. Liberal International Law as a `Social' Practice: A Communicative Action
with an `unavoidable' Impartial Superior
In Rules, Norms and Decisions Kratochwil offers a theory of communicative action, following
upon Habermas, which perhaps takes up where Koskenniemi concludes. He appears to wish to
be able to dispense with the need for a constraining sovereign, arguing that the sovereign itself
depends for its existence upon a contract, i.e. precisely the common acceptance of a practice
etc.101 I would characterise this enterprise as foundationless in the sense that the existence of
independent and equal individuals/actors is the sole assumption upon which rests a theory of
law/social normativity. The latter is to be constructed through a procedure which involves the
consent of all concerned, but in the sense that they participate actively in a rational, in the sense
of reasoned, justification of the norms which they adopt. The individuals/actors are, therefore,
not `grounded' in a tradition, embedded in social structures, or materially constituted by a
common nature.
Kratochwil states that it is through analyzing the reasons which are specific to rule-types
that the inter-subjective validity of norms can be decided. What is required is investigation of
the circumstances under which certain types of reasons serve as sufficient justification for
following a rule: itself a more encompassing theory of communicative action.102 Yet at once
he seems to be ambivalent about whether a hermeneutic is alone sufficient. He appears to
consider that since the Hobbsean sovereign will not be disinterested and impartial, the quest for
such a sovereign is futile.103 Nonetheless, paradoxically, the sense of the presence of a
Hobbsean sovereign serves as latent for a trust in a general system of expectations guaranteed
by the inter-subjectivity of the rules (114). However, fundamental for Hobbes was the
exclusion of unilateral resolution of differences as to interpretation of rules. This difficulty
must be faced in any hypothetical construction of a legal order.
At times it is not clear whether Kratochwil is recommending a renewed legal
phenomenology or whether he maintains consistently the perspectivism essential to a
foundationless legal hermeneutic. So he writes of the closeness to the ground which general
customary law is supposed to fulfil in Habermas's interpretation of Durkheim:...`Without
having regard to the imperatives of self-preservation or self-interest he commits himself with
all the other believers to a communion'.104 The question arises, given that a traditional view of
morality is not being offered, what and where is the reasoned process by which one is to reach
communion? International lawyers may appear to be invited to embark upon scrupulous
empirical searches for evidence that one has/the society of states has/ reached `communion'.
This would invite a renewed search, for instance, for the `opinio juris' of states as a generalised
psychological condition. However it is clear that this is precisely the kind of search he want to
101 Kratochwil, 96.
102 Kratochwil, 97.
103 ibid., 117.
104 Kratochwil, 124.
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Anthony Carty
enable us to abandon as a sterile search for an authoritative, impartial authority standing above
states.
As he develops his argument that there is no need for an impartial observer/third
party/world state/international legal order/ God etc, Kratochwil insists that he is speaking for
law and morality alike. Indeed this helps him to stress that there is no question that the former
has to support an analytical theory of coercion or sanction; there has been a common
misunderstanding:
...that the obligatory force of a norm or rule derives from the issuance of a `command' by
God or the sovereign. This command theory seems to be acceptable only as an explanation
of the experience of the sacred. Justifications in terms of intersubjective reasons, on the
other hand, are `claims to validity' that can be decided only discursively... Deliberation and
persuasion are similarly characteristic of legal decision-making, as the metaphor of
`finding the law' and the need for reasons offered in a judicial pronouncement indicate.
The subject/object, formalist legal method consists of a monologic theory of justification,
giving primacy to logical criteria and consistency. This has been shown to be unable to resolve
the conflicts which arise between free and equal legal subjects. However Kratochwil argues
that the enterprise should not be abandoned too readily. Apparently indeterminate norms, such
as `cruel and unusual punishment' are decidable not once and for all, but depend upon shared
practices and historical contexts.105 My question to this argument is whether it drives an
anti-foundationalist legal hermeneutics back once again into reliance upon a hypotheised
impartial third party, in practice purely imaginary, or at least very secondary, in contemporary
international relations.
Kratochwil has set himself the task of establishing that rights become operative only in a
discursive community,106 that intuitive or cognative grounds for rights suppose an outmoded
ontology (ibid., 168 ­ an argument about which he is as dogmatic as Koskenniemi). He sets out
a framework for a hermeneutic of the perspectives of concretely established social entities. He
recommends resort to dialectical reasoning, which ideally suits an anti-foundationalist
hermeneutic. He follows a distinction first established by Aristotle: `Reasoning is
demonstrative when it proceeds from premises which are true and primary...Reasoning is
dialectical when it reasons from generally accepted opinions.'107 So one has to address the
context in which key `social entities' formulate their opinions. It is not a question of a
phenomenological or cognative search for `legal facts' such as the supposed existence of an
opinio juris of states with respect to the existence of a binding general custom. As Kratochwil
puts it, `what acquires the status of an `objective' fact is not the thing described but rather the
intersubjective validity of a characterization upon which reasonable persons can agree' (each
time, his emphasis).
It appears to me that Kratochwil does not maintain this position. `The imperfections of
reality, i.e. the actual unavailability of consensus' are to be overcome by restricting the type of
participants one admits to the discourse.108 He understands here a form of exclusion which he
has elaborated in terms of material standards of conduct. For instance he writes that `we have
no defences against either the morally indifferent or the fanatic'. A `sincere Nazi' would accept
going to a death camp if he was Jewish. His response is very strong. `But such a position
borders on madness'. The consistency principle will invite incentives to invent spurious classes
105 Kratochwil, 138.
106 ibid., 172.
107 Kratochwil, 215, quoting Aristotle.
108 Kratochwil, 229.
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Recent Trends in the Theory of International Law
of people to demonstrate (my choice of word, to indicate the moral realist nature of the
argument) that the `others' are not part of the `society' to which the rules apply.109 So
Kratochwil again quotes Aristotle, that `...You should, therefore, not readily join issue with
casual persons (where) those who are practicing cannot forbear from disputing
contentiously'.110
His hermeneutical/perspectivist approach hopes to overcome the indeterminacy of political
liberalism by appealing to the rootedness of claims to protection for particular interests in the
value-consensus of society. For instance the norm that `one is obliged to restitute the damage
done to another' supposes that one is able to progress through a set of argumentative steps.111
In his opinion a `tradition' of values is already legally informed, differing from pure ethics or
simple commonsense considerations.112 It is only because he believes there is a context for
communicative structures that it is, in his view, possible `to rally support (assent) to practical
judgements on the basis of commonly accepted value-positions'. Only in this way can one
avoid the dilemmas entailed in the equally naive rationalist mode of `subsumption' as a basis of
understanding legal reasoning.113 This is how he might have overcome the legal nihilism
exposed by Koskenniemi and Kennedy. Yet it is a path which drives him back into what is
predominantly once again legal phenomenology ­ the search for the legal conviction of states
which expresses the general legal consensus that is the ground and framework for the
elaboration of specific solutions on the basis of a dialectic of opinions held. It is only at the last,
rather subordinate point that a legal hermeneutic is introduced.
For instance how is it that Kratochwil can be categorical about the issue of state rights
when proponents of individual rights insist that only people, not states, exist? `States have
rights in so far as they are members of a practical association called the international
community (legal order) which is based on the acceptance of common practices and the
recognition of mutual rights'. For instance the rights of ambassadors and treaty making are
rights only as `part of the interaction of public legal bodies'.114 There are not many orthodox
international lawyers who would disagree with him. Yet this seems rather a disappointingly
orthodox `proof' that consent, induced by reasoned discourse, is and can be the `foundation'
for a viable international society.
Kratochwil remains open about the extent to which a concrete international legal order
exists in the sense in which he here defines such an order. The world political process remains
sporadic, despite the increased intensity of communications. It is often characterized by
bargaining and coercive moves rather than by persuasion and by appeals to common standards,
shared values and accepted solutions. Therefore many relevant legal rules and principles
remain unclear in the absence of authoritative determination. There is a role for advisory
opinions and scholarly expositions, but their weight rests upon their persuasive power rather
than their institutional authority.115
C. A Social Practice of Communicative Action without an Impartial Superior
In Lücken im Völkerrecht, Fastenrath offers a critique of international law which is very close
to Koskenniemi's. At the same time it helps to make the break with existing international legal
109 Kratochwil, 133.
110 ibid., 230.
111 Kratochwil, 238.
112 ibid., 242.
113 Kratochwil, 247.
114 Kratochwil, 161.
115 Kratochwil, 254-5.
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Anthony Carty
structures. Through this work one can see more clearly how the distinction between formal
sources of law and material law can be abandoned and then precisely how much is involved in
a commitment to a social practice of communicative action. I say deliberately that it is possible
to take these guidelines from his work because, at the same time, Fastenrath makes numerous
overcautious qualifications to his analysis which appear to indicate that he draws back from his
own conclusions.
The first question is whether there are criteria for the identification of positive legal norms
in international law. The crucial issue should be the testing of the existence of an opinio juris or
legal conviction of states. Yet the concept of general custom does not rest on a consensus. At
least three theories of law are engaged: psychological, sociological and a formal will theory.
There is no point in trying to measure the relative correctness of these theories, although
Fastenrath concludes, gratuitously, that each has a kernel of truth in it.116 An examination of
treaties and general principles of law reveals equal difficulties. The latter contain an
unresolved an commitment to both positivist and natural law theory, as well as uncertainty
about the extent of weight to be attached to municipal law experience.117 The former suffer
from a general weakness of international standards. They contain little precision and all is to
depend upon concrete application in the absence of an authoritative interpreter.118 That is, the
ambiguity of treaty standards is part of the general uncertainty, at the global level, as to the
meaning of such cultural values as peace and justice, and the absence of an authoritative
language which might make them more precise.119 The issue of the plurality of cultural values
is rendered all the more acute in contemporary international law because of the apparent
wholescale incorporation of such vague values into the formal structure of international law.
For instance the principle of equity has been treated as a legal principle in law of the sea
cases.120
In my view Fastenrath helps in understanding how to make the break with two key
concepts of liberalism, the idea that a state is free to do what is not forbidden by a rule to which
it has given its assent, and the belief that a law based on consent must function as a
practice-based experience of the parties directly affected. He recognises the notion of the
priority of freedom as a Kantian principle which is, as such, not necessarily anchored in
international practice. Instead he stresses that the problem in international relations is how to
balance conflicting claims, something the principle itself cannot do. If the function of law is to
arrange the most just possible order and to fix reliable boundaries between opposing
jurisdictions, the priority of a principle of freedom could not be more dyfunctional.121 This
brings one back to Fastenrath's more general argument that principles and norms of
international law are too vague to allow decisive deductive reasoning from them. Put in more
theoretical terms, his view is that no legal or natural language can give an exact meaning to a
concept; there can only be an ad hoc interpretation by those directly involved in a specific
context.122
However, Fastenrath draws back from the view that international law never receives a
definite, undisputed interpretation.123 He insists that international law is not destroyed as a
116 Fastenrath, 37-38.
117 ibid., 39.
118 ibid., 35 and 20.
119 ibid., 11-12.
120 ibid., 51-52 et seq..
121 ibid., 105-108.
122 ibid., 79-80.
123 ibid., 13.
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Recent Trends in the Theory of International Law
system by questions of disagreement about content.124 Nonetheless he does not see the
solution to disagreements in what I would regard as illusory searches for a single authoritative
international instance ­ which could be either `conclusive' proof of the existence of a
customary rule or the fact that a compulsory adjudicatory or legislative forum has been found.
Fastenrath definitely abandons this temptation.
At the same time it is the formalism of the liberal theory of law that has given it its
constraining, binding character. If it is true that consent may be obtained through any form or
procedure, it is equally true that, given a very low level of formalism in reaching consent, there
need be very little change to undo consent.125 He is not committing himself to a theory of
sources of law in what is really a taxonomy of differing views. He does accept that the absence
of the possibility of making convincing deductions from general principles appears to throw
the judiciary, for instance, into decisionism.126 However Fastenrath avoids the issue of
obligation, (and thereby the hard rhetoric/soft rhetoric dilemma posed by Kennedy and
Koskenniemi, as well as the more formal liberal, in the sense of Kantian, structures of Verdross
and Simma, and, in the final analysis also, of Kratochwil,) by adopting an anti-foundationalist
approach in a functionalist guise.
Instead Fastenrath maintains that the notion that consensus could always be renounced at
any time is simply not functional.127 Nor it is likely that any international society could
function where all of its rules were so vague that participants in the society had to thrash out
every detail at each move.128 The question is simply how to resolve uncertainty where it does
actually arise. Fastenrath does not directly face or resolve the issue raised at the philosophical
level by MacIntyre, and considered by Verdross and Simma, that state consensus on the
constitution of the international community is linked to a rationalist consensus theory. The
point is simply respectfully mentioned.129 However the clear emphasis of Fastenrath's work is
to recommend how disagreement about meaning and value is to be resolved in an
anti-foundationalist spirit.
So it is simply the starting point rather than the conclusion of the debate to assert,
triumphantly, that participants in international society disagree with one another. That is to
state the obvious. At the same time, however, the participants in international society
inevitable seek to push their meaning through, to reach a universal, not a partial meaning.130
Arguing against what he calls Kennedy's postmodernism, Fastenrath objects to the view of
international society as consisting of closed self-refering systems, in favour of the perspective
of conversational participants, not simply in the sense that they exchange ideas, but also in that
they bring themselves into the process. What they know beforehand, what they bring into the
process, alters in the development of the discussion, so that transfered contents don't simply
remain closed entities, but are incorporated into trains of meaning. So understanding is a
process of self-understanding, whereby reflection is not simply onto an external object but
must also include the subject.131
Fastenrath follows the general thesis that ideas have no prior existence in nature. They
respond to the needs of normal life. With language people empower themselves and create
124 ibid., 67.
125 Fastenrath, 44.
126 ibid., 94.
127 Fastenrath, 114.
128 ibid., 111.
129 Fastenrath, 42.
130 Fastenrath, 99-100.
131 Fastenrath, 27.
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Anthony Carty
their world. Communication depends upon a consensus of meaning in a context and with a
background. This applies equally to all texts, such as treaties. This is the transcendental
dimension to Fastenrath's thought, however much it may appear in a functionalist guise. Once
again Fastenrath stresses that such ideas and texts etc are not closed, independent entities, but
constitute new information to be added to the fore-knowledge and fore-understanding already
present. The task of hermeneutics is to describe this information flow as an inter-subjective
communication. There is certainly difficulty in the interaction of old and new information. Full
agreement on the part of interpreters is never present. Yet it is simply a matter of striving and
certainly, Fastenrath concludes, once again on a slighty non-committal note, some measure of
agreement is necessary for a rule to be said to exist.132 So it is still a matter of stating the terms
most suitable for ensuring this agreement, which is what I mean by the transcendental
framework for the most perfect possible inter-subjective communication. These terms will, in a
functionalist perspective, become clear from the observation of actual practice.
IV. Towards an `ethnography' of International Legal Hermeneutics
I have suggested that the so-called primary source of international law, general customary law,
has encrusted upon it an aesthetic perspective on national culture133which should invite
attempts at a hermeneutic of cultural interpretation. While it is not possible in a review of other
contributions to contemporary theory of international law to give an exhaustive account of my
own approach at this stage, I would like to suggest certain markers towards my own theory. It
is a simple supposition to argue that for a sense of obligation to exist there must be a sense of
identity. As I ask in The Decay `In what sense is it possible to speak of States having an identity
which allows one to suppose that, as centres of subjectivity, they have acquired a sense of
obligation with respect to a particular matter?'. A notion of corporate personality could answer
the question only if an international legal system had designated certain legally competent
organs which could specify a legal commitment. This I have rejected for the same reasons as
the others give. There is no international legal order such as positivist legal language has tried
to represent. To use the international relations language of Hollis and Smith (1990, pp.7-8), in
terms of `levels of analysis', I definitely opt for the view that the individual nation-state is prior
to any international system. If there were systemic forces strong enough to propel nation-states
through their orbits, one might account for that system's working without enquiring into the
internal organisation of the state units.'
My central objection to the German theory of legal nationalism, the so-called Volksgeist,
was that it precluded a precise analysis of decision-making processes which might have
allowed an awareness of psychological perceptions.134 At the same time I rejected `realist'
interpretations the `behaviour' of states, as `dictated by their interests' in favour of a view of
the state as a system of shared perceptions, practices and institutions within which
communities of persons establish and advance their ends.135 I would like to develop this
perspective by claiming that the interpretation of the evolution of international standards, in an
international society which is secondary to the states which compose it, is a function of the
reconciling of competing community paradigms. I take the concept of paradigm from the work
of Hollis and Smith who adapt certain recent developments in the philosophy of science to
international relations.
132 Fastenrath, 71-74, and 99-100.
133 The Decay, .114.
134 The Decay, 30-36.
135 The Decay, 111-113.
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Recent Trends in the Theory of International Law
Popper, Quine and Kuhn converge in their understanding of so-called scientific objectivity,
that it always a matter of a priori judgement whether a particular `fact' or `experience' is
admitted as `valid'. It is a function of how far it corresponds to the interpretation which the
paradigm puts on the new material. If there are numerous new materials which do not fit
comfortably into the paradigm it may eventually become overloaded and disintegrate. Hollis
and Smith uses these deliberations to subject supposedly `realist' paradigms of national state
interest to `scientific' criticism in their own terms. These are found wanting as being
unverifiably vague.136 Such a conclusion may, and in my view should, push us easily towards
a theory of interpretation of the social world rather than exclusive `objective' concentration on
behaviour. A question which Hollis and Smith ask is whether the existence of deeply different
forms or patterns of life constitutes a barrier to universal norms for international behaviour.137
If it is a matter of self-warranting systems, in the sense that each declares what is real and
rationally believed through its own internal practices, then there is no neutral external criterion
for reality or rationality.138
My own post-modern approach to the sources of international standards of behaviour does
not merely leave open the possibility that there is no overarching system whose signification
could be unravelled by a sufficiently subtle and tactful hermeneutic. It insists that such is the
primary problematic with which international lawyers have to work. The LAW is a tapestry of
lacunae with occasional densities of normativity. If the question is how to recognise and,
perhaps overcome the lacunae, it is by recognising the key factors which go to provide most
states with varying degrees of internal cohesion, and from which they then view international
society. I try to reconstruct a notion of nationalism in the sense that every political community
must have its own distinct constellation of political values rooted in a specific political culture
which defines what it regards as obligatory. This is the starting point for any work of legal
hermeneutic or translation.
Once it is seen that a state is nothing more or less than a metaphysical entity, an idea held in
common by a group of people,139 the institutional apparatus with which a people organises
itself upon a specific territory, the primary question becomes: from where can the international
lawyer draw standards to determine what a people is, how it understands itself and how it
judges others. The appropriate task for the lawyer is to understand (engage in a hermeneutic of)
the claims, allegations and actions of the states parties to a dispute, incident etc, in terms of
their `cultural' pre-suppositions. Indeed the clash of such pre-suppositions constitutes his
problem. There is no elusive slight of hand, in terms of a positivist international legal order,
which will resolve it for him. At the same time there may well be, in a particular case, already
a density of normativity which reflects the fact that the two `fields of force' represented by the
states are already intimately integrated.
The difficulty with the hermeneutical approach is that it
appears to require the lawyer to accept the intentions and meanings of parties at their face
value. However in respect of a matter so basic as how individuals and groups come to identify
themselves as peoples, and then proceed to make claims upon space and even to authority over
other peoples, some critical apparatus is still necessary to assess these intentions. Some
understanding of the problem can be found in recent theoretical work on nationalism. For
instance in The Ethnic Origin of Nations Smith' researches may serve to alert lawyers to the
types of arguments which have their roots in ethnicity. Ethnicity is a vague word. Smith
136 Hollis and Smith, 50-66.
137 Hollis and Smith, 82-4.
138 Hollis and Smith, 87.
139 The Decay, 7.
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Anthony Carty
interprets it simply140to mean the sense of a number of people living together and acting
together, though not necessarily belonging to the same clan or tribe. The modern nation is the
continuous successor of the historical ethne141 which has the vital consequence that historical
memory is the central feature of nationalism. As such it is being constantly restated.
This is precisely where the lawyer comes in. He is always faced with a ready-made
complex of consciously constructed arguments justifying claims of peoples to territories, to
independence, to freedom from unwarranted menace from others, and, in more positive terms,
to histories of collaborative ventures with certain neighbours or confederates. There are no
limits to the variety of arguments with which effectively nationalist intellectuals will confront
the international lawyer. None of these arguments need be taken to have any fundamental
validity. They have simply emerged in the course of modern history. To borrow the language
of Kratochwil, they face the lawyer with the task of a dialectician. However, without
embracing a foundationalist view of nationalism, I would claim that the richness of historial
experience outlined by a work such as Smith's ­ essentially an exposition of the arguments
elaborated by nationalist intellectuals in an immense variety of historical contexts ­ the lawyer
has a framework sufficiently dense to allow the play of a dialectical hermeneutic to take a
definite form.
I might conclude this over-brief introduction by drawing upon Smith to illustrate the rich
texture of argument with which the lawyer could well have to contend, should he so choose.
The approach dove-tails perfectly with the notion of cultural anthropology with which I began
this paper. By cultural difference is meant a specific sense of historical community. It is
derived less from objective indicators such as fertility, literacy or urbanization rates, as from
`meanings conferred by a number of men and women over some generations on certain
cultural, spatial and temporal properties of their interaction and shared experience'.142
A common identification in struggle makes up the collective memory of the people in a
spatial context which they are then anxious to preserve. So, for instance, this is why the French
perceived the German acquisition of Alsace-Lorraine after the Franco-Prussian war of 1870 as
unjustified. The rancour caused by this experience was one of the occasions of the First World
War. In terms of linguistic culture the population was very largely German. However the
institutional territorial memory of the people was very distinct from the German people as a
whole, and, above all, bound up with the revolutionary nationalism of France between 1789
and 1815.143 Such a case shows the extreme importance of a very close familiarity with the
facts of the particular situation. This is the only way there is a real prospect of assessing the
relative weight of, for instance, institutional memory and ethnicity in the narrower cultural
sense. There are forms of social bonding which are associated with a common language, above
all, interpretations of the spiritual life of a people, which could have bound the provinces of
Alsace-Lorraine to the German Empire. However in this particular case such forms of bonding
were not enough to overcome the particular circumstances of the transfer, i.e. the
Prussian/German defeat of the second version of the French Napoleonic dream, a curious
mixture of imperial nationalism and democratic liberalism. The Treaties of Peace of Frankfurt
(1871) and Versailles (1919) are merely registers of events in the terms outlined here.
1. The Nuclear Tests Case ICJ Rep.(1986) 253.
2. The Continental Shelf Cases ICJ Rep.(1969) 1.
140 Smith, 1986, 21-22.
141 Smith, p.216.
142 Smith, 21-2.
143 Smith, 129, 149, 202.
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Recent Trends in the Theory of International Law
27
Bibliography:
A. Carty, The Decay of International Law (1986).
J. Clifford (ed.), Writing Culture, The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography (1986).
Fastenrath, Lücken im Völkerrecht (1990).
M. Hollis and S. Smith, Explaining and Understanding International Relations (1990).
Kennedy, `Primitive Legal Scholarship', Harv.I.L.Journal (1986) 1-98;
D. Kennedy, International Legal Structures (1987).
M. Koskenniemi, From Apology to Utopia, The Structure of International Legal Argument
(1989).
F.V. Kratochwil, Rules, Norms and Decisions. On the conditions of practical and legal
reasoning in international relations and domestic affairs (1989).
A. MacIntyre, After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory (2nd ed. 1985).
A. MacIntyre, Whose justice? Which rationality? (1988).
N. Rouland, Anthropologie Juridique (1988).
B. Simma, `International Crimes: Injury and Countermeasures', in J.H. Weiler, A. Cassese, M.
Spinedi (eds), International Crimes of State (1989).
A.D. Smith, The Ethnic Origins of Nations (1986).
A. Verdross, B. Simma, Universelles Völkerrecht: Theorie u. Praxis (3rd. edition 1984).