Language Of International Law Research Articles

From the National to the Comparative in International Law: Cold War Redux?

Abstract Recent years have witnessed greater attention to the ‘national’ dimension in international law and, in its wake, a move towards comparison. The first section of this article examines the early rise of ‘comparative’ approaches to international law with reference to the pioneering work of William E. Butler during the Cold War and contextualizes the coinage of the term ‘invisible college of international law’ at a time of relative ‘détente’ in the 1970s, suggesting, furthermore, that a pattern of repetition and renewal in engagement with constructions and international legal thought in the Cold War period is currently taking place. The second section examines a move to the national in international law and both the promises and perils of comparative international law, including because of the parallel introduction of the new divisive-prone descriptors of ‘authoritarian international law’ and ‘rules-based international system’. It also highlights the cyclical nature of the ‘comparative’ turn to the national in international law now that the war in Ukraine and the strongly divided reactions to Israel’s protracted military campaign in the Gaza Strip are crystallizing a new Cold War-like scenario in an emerging post-Western-centric and multi-polar order. The conclusion recaps the main findings of the article and suggests that comparative international law should be used to enhance, not to undermine, the language of international law as a two-way bridge between peoples and nations in times of turmoil.

Sending “our brothers” back “home”: Continuity and change in President Erdoğan’s discourse on Syrian refugees

AbstractConsiderable research has examined Turkey’s discursive governance of the Syrian refugee crisis, identifying the central themes and metaphors in top officials’ refugee-related messages. However, since they tend to rely on qualitative analyses based on convenience or purposive samples, prior studies have failed to assess the relative frequency of these themes and fall short of reliably gauging the shifts and continuities in the official discourse on refugees. Moreover, while several studies have noted the growing emphasis on the repatriation of Syrian refugees in recent years, no research has yet explored how the Turkish government has sought to reconcile this with its pro-refugee posturing. This paper addresses these limitations via a mixed methods analysis of 382 speeches President Erdoğan gave from September 2014 through December 2022. Quantitative findings show that Islamist and neo-Ottomanist themes have played a major role in Erdoğan’s refugee discourse throughout his presidency. However, since 2018, there has been a sharp increase in Erdoğan’s remarks about repatriating Syrian refugees. A critical discourse analysis of these remarks indicates that Erdoğan has appropriated the language of international law and standards on refugee returns so that he can continue to claim the moral high ground while simultaneously advocating mass repatriation of the Syrians.

The term 'Indo-Pacific' as conceptualised in the language of international law

This paper is dedicated to scrutinising the problem of how the term “Indo-Pacific” is conceptualised in the international law from both linguistics and IR (International Relations) perspectives. The relevance of the topic is defined by a growing number of corresponding legal documents adopted by regional and external actors, which in turn has an impact on the realm of international law. The goal of the study consists in tracing back the peculiarities accompanying the described process of conceptualisation. A brief literature review demonstrates a clear lack of related analyses in the legal dimension; the academic novelty can thus be substantiated by the fact that the groups of sources of law introducing the “Indo-Pacific” concept are categorised in a hierarchical manner. From a methodological point of view the paper is aimed at adding linguistics and international law to the mix of disciplines that can assist in comprehending the relatively recent phenomenon of “Indo-Pacific”, political science already being paramount among these. As for the findings, it has been shown that bridging the gap between the designated areas is in principle possible thanks to an interdisciplinary approach, allowing thereby to create a multidimensional image of the macroregion. Another associated inference concerns the dynamics of how exactly the notion under discussion has been rooting in the sources of international law: namely, this happened due to a transfer from national legislation. The article is concluded with the discussion on the evolution stages of incorporation of the term “Indo-Pacific” in the international law, as well as recommended directions of further research.

INTERNATIONAL LAWYERS AS A PROFESSIONAL COMMUNITY

Even though international lawyers represent a variety of countries with diff erent cultures and legal traditions, with diff erent levels of economic development and political goals, they constitute a unique professional community ("a kind of invisible college dedicated to a common intellectual enterprise", according to O. Schachter) speaking one language — the language of international law. In international relations, in the absence of a higher (supranational) authority, lawyers sometimes become the only ones who "civilize" the protection of national interests, according to M. Koskenniemi; it causes specifi c ethical professional problems, which are considered on the example of the work of a lawyer in foreign policy departments, in international organizations and in international courts. The article substantiates the idea that international lawyers, due to the huge creative potential of their profession, are, in fact, the "architects" of international law and the system in which it exists.

Signaling restraint: international engagement and rebel groups’ commitment to international law

ABSTRACT Approximately 20% of contemporary rebel groups have expressed commitment to international law and signaled their intention to exercise restraint during wartime. Which rebel groups make these commitments and under what conditions? We argue that international engagement shapes the likelihood of rebel commitment to international law. Rebel groups with transnational non-military support and clear organizational structure are likely to speak the language of international law, especially near peace negotiations. We find support for our argument in a statistical analysis of international law commitments by rebel groups between 1974 and 2010. The analysis has implications for humanitarian engagement and promoting restraint in war.

International law as a common language across spheres of authority?

AbstractWhen actors express conflicting views about the validity or scope of norms or rules in relation to other norms or rules in the international sphere, they often do so in the language of international law. This contribution argues that international law’s hermeneutic acts as a common language that cuts across spheres of authority and can thus serve as a conflict management tool for interface conflicts. Often, this entails resorting to an international court. While acknowledging that courts cannot provide permanent solutions to the underlying political conflict, I submit that court proceedings are interesting objects of study that promote our understanding of how international legal argument operates as a conflict management device. I distinguish three dimensions of common legal form, using the well-knownEC–Hormonescase as illustration: a procedural, argumentative, and substantive dimension. While previous scholarship has often focused exclusively on the substantive dimension, I argue that the other two dimensions are equally important. In concluding, I reflect on a possible explanation as to why actors are disposed to resort to international legal argument even if this is unlikely to result in a final solution: there is a specific authority claim attached to international law qua law.

Zakaz nabywania terytorium państwa przez zawojowanie (debellatio) – perspektywa historyczna" - Prohibition of the acquisition of a state territory through deballatio – a historical perspective

A war is inevitably linked to changes in state borders, and the fighting armies were often occupying a territory of a hostile state by extending their power onto them. In the past, the areas occupied by a hostile state were often integrated to the victorious state (by the so-called deballatio) or subjected to various forms of dependence (e.g. a fief). Starting from the 19th century, a concept has been developed, according to which territorial changes between two belligerent countries are impermissible until the termination of military activities and the conclusion of a peace treaty . As a result of the Hague Conference of 1899 and 1907, an institution of an occupied territory was introduced into the language of international law, i.e. a state territory occupied by an enemy. An annexation, being the result of war, has a different character from the institution of an occupied territory, and a military occupation has not replaced a deballatio. They both coexisted, although they stem from a similar factual situation – a state of war and a consequent intrusion of an enemy on another state's territory. They also bring a similar effect, which is to establish the political system of the occupying state in this territory. As long as war was a legal mean of settling international disputes, the resulting transfer of a territory could not be illegal. During the ‘20s and ‘30s of the 20th century, the states were applying the practice of integrating the conquered territories rather than establishing a military occupation regime, and this met with the appreciation of the then countries. However, the author of this article puts forth a thesis that at the turn of the ‘30s and ‘40s of the 20th century, there was a prohibition of deballatio effected in violation of the then international law, and therefore with the Kellogg – Briand Pact. Territorial annexations, carried out by the Third Reich and the USSR against the territory of the Republic of Poland and other European countries after 1939, were therefore illegal. The purpose of this article is neither to comprehensively discuss the institution of military occupation, nor the prohibition of acquisition of a state territory through the use or a threat to use armed forces, or in particular – to discuss the current nature of the prohibition of deballatio. The intention of the author is to show how the prohibition of deballatio has finally emerged in the international law. When addressing this issue, it is impossible not to discuss the institution of deballatio and the international practice of the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries and the institution of military occupation, whose introduction to the international law related to the analysed issue. Only when the military occupation is presented, we will discuss the attempts aiming at prohibiting deballatio which have been made since the 19th century.

The Politics of International Law in the Post-Soviet Space: Do Georgia, Ukraine, and Russia ‘Speak’ International Law in International Politics Differently?

Since the Soviet Union’s collapse, Ukraine, Georgia and Russia have faced the challenge of taking their positions in the politics of international law as part of their transformation processes. Strong dynamics of conflict have shaped these states’ politico-legal actions and interactions, for example, the Russo–Georgian War, the annexation of Crimea and the armed conflict in East Ukraine. This essay explores whether, how and why Georgia, Ukraine and Russia ‘speak’ international law in international politics differently. It discusses conceptual approaches to empirically analysing the processes of translating political preferences into legal arguments as well as how ‘communicators of international law’ in the post-Soviet region use the language of international law differently.

Review Essay: Situating Al-Shaybani’s Siyar in the History and Language of International Law

The history of international law is a much-contested topic, the lineage of which is often traced to certain individuals, who are often either Western male lawyers or politicians and their texts, or treaties that founded the field and its subfields. This contestation occurs because of certain uncritical Western-centric views that tend to romanticize Western scholars while ignoring non-Westerners’ contributions to international law. At the heart of this history, however, is the universality of the general principles of international law, and claiming that these principles and practices and the individuals who advanced them are all Western demonstrates an ignorance of non-Western contributions to the law and, more importantly, of its colonial origins. Therefore, recent scholarship that is critical of the history of international law should be always welcomed, as it adds substance, robustness, and richness to the field. Also to be welcomed are studies that explore the contributions of non-Western jurists to international law, such as Khaled Bashir’s Islamic International Law, on Muhammad Al-Shaybani (750–805), an Iraqi Muslim theologian and jurist who authored Al-Siyar, a major treatise on international law.

The Antics of Semantics in International Law

Response to the ATR Debate Proposition: ‘It is important and necessary to make clear distinctions between (irregular) migrants, refugees and trafficked persons.’
 Whether a person is given a loaded label like ‘irregular’ migrant, refugee or trafficked person, can make the difference between arrest and protection, or between deportation and asylum, or between return to an uncertain fate and assistance for a decent life. In short, the distinctions we make in the language of international law may mean the difference between life and death.

International law and feeding the world in times of climate change

ABSTRACTGrowing consensus that climate change exacerbates hunger has led to enhanced efforts to find new ways to feed the world. The prevailing approach to feeding the world in times of climate change is informed by neoliberal tenets, in line with the dominant contemporary global food regime. At the same time, there is resistance against neoliberal solutions to hunger, led primarily by food sovereignty movements. This short paper explores the role that international law plays in constructing a neoliberal narrative of hunger and a food sovereignty narrative of hunger in the context of climate change. The main conclusion is that the dominant neoliberal narrative promotes certain fundamental assumptions about hunger and climate change, and the food sovereignty narrative fails to challenge these assumptions. The language of international law limits the options food sovereignty advocates have to challenge the dominant neoliberal narrative and its underlying assumptions.

The International Institutions as Promoters of Systemic and Symbolic Violence – Feminist Approach to the Climate Change Regime

Climate change regime is formed to ameliorate the impacts of anthropocentric activities over the environment. The structure of the regime is formed by multilateral international agreements that reproduce a colonial logic in which metanarratives are used to cast the shadow of domination thru the language of international law. In this study the metanarratives are challenged by feminist theory that provides the dialectic tools to expose the attempt to perpetuate the colonial ruling thru law. The empirical dimension of the study is conducted using the content analysis to identify the subtext and context underlying the text of international law, being such task conducted using a computer assisted qualitative data analysis software (CADQAS) called ATLAS.ti.

Sharpening the Vigilance of the World: Reconsidering the Russell Tribunal as Ritual

In the late 1960s Russell-Sartre Tribunal gathered a group of philosophers, lawyers, activists and historians to assess the culpability of the United States for war crimes committed in Vietnam. While traditionally dismissed by commentators as a “show trial,” the gathering provided inspiration for numerous twentieth and twenty-first century “peoples’ tribunals.” This article argues that both the legal and theoretical dimensions of the initial Tribunal’s work have been underappreciated. Specially, the piece builds on Talal Asad’s theory of “ritual” to show how the tribunal cultivated participants’ and onlookers’ sensibilities and encouraged a political practice of vigilance in examining the military actions of powerful states. The work of the first Russell-Sartre Tribunal envisioned a novel model for thinking about alternative forms of international criminal accountability, and helped constitute an activist, international public that—despite the absence of state recognition—still spoke in the language of international law.

Notes on Human Rights and Moral Decision Making

International human rights is the dominant polticol-moral discourse of the modern, post-World War II age. While clothed in the language of international law, at its heart human rights involves a discussion about the nature of being human and how we can pursue the good through respect for human rights. To advance human rights, it is, therefore, necessary to understand and engage in moral discourse. In this paper we will be exploring the concepts of moral decision making in relation to human rights. We will cover the following three topics: Morality and Morals vs Ethics Law vs Morals The Nature of Moral Decision Making: A) Identifying the Good B) The Process of Analysis 1) The actor or locus of care 2) Determining the good 3) Context 4) Competing values

The International Institutions As Promoters of Systemic and Symbolic Violence Feminist Approach to the Climate Change Regime

Climate change regime is formed to ameliorate the impacts of anthropocentric activities over the environment. The structure of the regime is formed by multilateral international agreements that reproduce a colonial logic in which metanarratives are used to cast the shadow of domination thru the language of international law. In this study the metanarratives are challenged by feminist theory that provides the dialectic tools to expose the attempt to perpetuate the colonial ruling thru law. The empirical dimension of the study is conducted using the content analysis to identify the subtext and context underlying the text of international law, being such task conducted using a computer assisted qualitative data analysis software (CADQAS) called ATLAS.ti.

The Non-Native Speakers of International Law: The Case of Russia

This article presents a metaphor that might explain Russia’s approach to international law. Drawing on linguistics, the article proposes that Russia has been a non-native speaker of international law. A non-native speaker’s experiences range from estrangement and disengagement from the foreign language and its speech community to that of empowerment and inspiration nurtured by the acquisition of a new language and a new multilingual identity. Thus, as a non-native speaker, Russia has approached international law with two rhetorical moves: as a disaffected foreigner and as an empowered multilingual subject who aspires to uphold and interpret the rules of the language recently acquired. As a multilingual speaker fluent in the language of international law, Russia has asserted control over judgments of grammaticality and has disagreed with previously determined linguistic rules established by the native-speaking community. The notion of a non-native speaker of international law can apply to states other than Russia. Policymakers and intellectual leaders of other countries, including China, might perceive themselves as non-native speakers in their encounters with the western European foundations of the language of international law. Finally, the article explores the future of international law by asking whether non-native speakers who have been gaining fluency in the parlance of international law will continue to develop their own linguistic repertoire, build their own vocabularies, and advance their own assertions regarding rules of grammar. The future of international law might be diglossic, as two varieties of its language, shared by different speech communities and practiced in different contexts, may be established.

Is Indian Nuclear Law in Conformity with the Constitutional and International Law?

Indian nuclear laws and policies are in conformity with international law, India, though not a party to any of the non-proliferation treaties yet has declared its policy of no first use of nuclear weapons and a commitment to non-proliferation. Most of the law relating to nuclear energy is derived from the customary international law principles which are ipso fato part of Indian law. India also has accepted many rules of the IAEA with regard to nuclear safeguards and safety. Indian nuclear liability law also takes substantially from the language of International law – the CSC or customary principles like strict liability.

International law, literature and interdisciplinarity

This article analyses the relationship between international law and literature from the point of view of its form of expression. Using insights from Deleuze and Guattari's analysis of Kafka's oeuvre as a ‘minor literature’, it argues that stylistic conventions of international law present a serious barrier to the full development of the truly revolutionary potential of international law. International law is situated in proximity to minor literature. Therefore, the constraints imposed on the use of language by the discipline of international law produce particularly distorting results within international law scholarship. These distortions reflect the need to open the language of international law up to new uses that allow for the precedence of expression over content, as in a minor literature.

From a Duty to Remember to an Obligation to Memory? Memory as Reparation in the Jurisprudence of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights

Commemorations and reparations are central elements of the transitional justice agenda. The inclusion of memory-related measures among the steps that states are expected to take along the transitional process has been progressively translated from the transitional justice domain to the language of international law. Judicial and quasi-judicial human rights instances have required states to make and undertake memorials, commemorations and public acts of remembrance, both as an instrument of reparation for the individual victim and as a mechanism to warn against the repetition of the same abuses in the future. As a result of this trend, memory-related measures have progressively become part of the state obligation to provide reparations to victims. The inclusion of memory-related measures in the scope of the international obligation to repair, however, raises some thorny issues. This review of the jurisprudence of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in relation to memory-related orders and analysis of the case of the memorial El Ojo que Llora in Peru critically assesses the emerging trend of using memory-related initiatives as measures of reparation determined by judicial organs.

NATIONAL MOVEMENTS AND INTERNATIONAL LAW: RABBI SHLOMO GOREN'S UNDERSTANDING OF INTERNATIONAL LAW

AbstractRabbi Shlomo Goren was one of the leading rabbinic figures in religious Zionist circles. As the first chief Rabbi of the Israeli military, he had a unique opportunity to influence the development of the Israeli army and its policies. He needed to deal with questions that had no precedents in Jewish law. One of his challenges was the part international law played in the formation of a modern army. Rabbi Goren wished to give a halachic perspective to questions of international law, and to do that, he had to translate the language of international law, a field developed in the modern period, to halachic language. This process led him to evaluate moral positions that are part of international law and the ability of halacha to be part of the modern world.