The "Law-Making" Behavior of States in the United Nations as a Function of Their Location within Formal World Regions

Abstract

A dominant presupposition of many writers on international relations and international law is that the world's legal order is essentially a reflection of the structure of the international system and the interests of the main actors in that system (see, for example, Coplin, 1960, 1965: 615-634; Falk, 1966: 172-187; Hoffmann, 1966: 134-166; Kaplan and Katzenbach, 1961; Lissitzyn, 1963). This paper will attempt to assess empirically the extent to which this presupposition of traditional verbal theory is congruent with an analysis of decisionmaking in one international arena (the Sixth Committee of the United Nations General Assembly) devoted to shaping legal norms for the world community. In so doing, this paper is intended as a modest contribution to the efforts of those international law scholars who are seeking to make the study of international law a science of observation (Alger, 1963: 37). In order to make any headway in this direction, a first requirement is that the concepts indicated in traditional verbal theory have clear empirical referents. Although international relations literature is copiously strewn with references to the ''structure of the international system, the meaning of this