The Growth of International Law between Globalization and the Great Power

Abstract

International Law is not only growing fast, but is virtually exploding: between 1864 and 1919, an estimated 257 multilateral treaties were concluded, and from 1919 to 1971, 1090 entered into force. In August 2003, a total of 40,000 treaties (among them 2799 multilateral ones), were registered with the UN. The question of this agora, is, however, not only whether international law is changing in quantity, but whether the international legal system is changing “in nature”. The principal reason for such a change might be the termination of the bipolar world order with its balance of power between two rivaling Great Powers and the increasing contempt of international law by the remaining single Superpower, the United States. Although the international legal system has always been shaped and dominated by Great Powers, America’s current global supremacy constitutes, as US Foreign Policy Advisor Professor Zbigniew Brzezinski pointed out, a “hegemony of a new type”. Hegemony means, since Greek antiquity, the political phenomenon of leadership or predominance, which may or may not be legally to some extent