Lanterna Rally
eBook PDF Download Digital Library
The Limits of International Law
Author: Jack L. Goldsmith
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2005-02-03
Total Pages: 271
ISBN-13: 0199883378
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →International law is much debated and discussed, but poorly understood. Does international law matter, or do states regularly violate it with impunity? If international law is of no importance, then why do states devote so much energy to negotiating treaties and providing legal defenses for their actions? In turn, if international law does matter, why does it reflect the interests of powerful states, why does it change so often, and why are violations of international law usually not punished? In this book, Jack Goldsmith and Eric Posner argue that international law matters but that it is less powerful and less significant than public officials, legal experts, and the media believe. International law, they contend, is simply a product of states pursuing their interests on the international stage. It does not pull states towards compliance contrary to their interests, and the possibilities for what it can achieve are limited. It follows that many global problems are simply unsolvable. The book has important implications for debates about the role of international law in the foreign policy of the United States and other nations. The authors see international law as an instrument for advancing national policy, but one that is precarious and delicate, constantly changing in unpredictable ways based on non-legal changes in international politics. They believe that efforts to replace international politics with international law rest on unjustified optimism about international law's past accomplishments and present capacities.
Review of General Theory of International Law (Ed. By S. Wiessner).
Author: Carol Castleberry
Publisher:
Published: 2019
Total Pages: 5
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →In General Theory of International Law, Siegfried Wiessner presents a selection of specifically American general theories of and about international law, written by the theorists themselves. Included are American Legal Realism, the New Haven School of Jurisprudence, International and Transnational Legal Process, Liberal Theories of International Law, and theories that link to social sciences, including Law and Economics, Critical Legal Studies, LatCrit, TWAIL, and feminist approaches. The range of these works covers the very concept of international law, its justification, the struggle between formalism and experience, various theories of legitimacy and fairness, the law's effectiveness, empirical analysis, critiques from the margins and the center, and approaches to its improvement. Wiessner's Introduction provides context by placing this selection of American theories into historical context, threading together the sequence and interrelation of their development in the midst of contemporaneous political and philosophical movements, and critically appraising them. This book brilliantly elucidates America's prophetic and reformist role in international law theory. This is no surprise in light of Wiessner's description of America's vision of itself as a leader of thought, the star of that “shining city on a hill.” America is the nonconformist, revolutionary, and scrutinizer of what is beneath the façade precisely because of this vision and its quest to determine what roles America should play on the international front.
General Theory of International Law
Author: Siegfried Wiessner
Publisher: Brill Nijhoff
Published: 2017
Total Pages: 0
ISBN-13: 9789004338456
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →This introductory volume to the series of American Classics in International Law is intended to present, put into context, and critically appraise specifically American general theories of and about international law. Those frameworks of ideas include the very concept of international law, its justification, the struggle between formalism and experience, various theories of legitimacy and fairness, the law's effectiveness, empirical analysis, critiques from the margins and the center, and approaches to its improvement. Particular focus is on American Legal Realism, the New Haven School of Jurisprudence, International and Transnational Legal Process, liberal theories of international law, linkages to social sciences, including Law and Economics, Critical Legal Studies, LatCrit, TWAIL, and feminist approaches to the discipline.
International Law as Behavior
Author: Harlan Grant Cohen
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2021-04
Total Pages: 311
ISBN-13: 1107188431
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Using a multi-disciplinary approach, this volume shows how international law shapes behavior.
Theory and International Law
Author: Philip Allott
Publisher: British Institute for International & Comparative Law
Published: 1991
Total Pages: 148
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Philosophy and International Law
Author: David Lefkowitz
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2020-10-29
Total Pages: 289
ISBN-13: 1107138779
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Offers an accessible discussion of conceptual and moral questions on international law and advances the debate on many of these topics.
Law at the Vanishing Point
Author: Aaron Fichtelberg
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2016-04-22
Total Pages: 265
ISBN-13: 1317107640
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Two central questions are at the core of international legal theory: 'What is international law?', and 'Is international law really law?' This volume examines these critical questions and the philosophical foundations of modern international law using the tools of Anglo-American legal theory and western political thought. Engaging with both contemporary and historical legal theory and with an analysis of international law in action, the book builds an understanding and theory of law from the perspective of those who actually use this legal system and understand it, rather than constructing an artificial system from the standpoint of political scientists and moral philosophers. Law at the Vanishing Point provides a fascinating new challenge to those who reduce international law either to ethics or to politics and provides a critical new appraisal of its power as an independent force in human social relations.
International Law Theories
Author: Andrea Bianchi
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2016-11-10
Total Pages: 378
ISBN-13: 0191038229
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Two fish are swimming in a pond. 'Do you know what?' the fish asks his friend. 'No, tell me.' 'I was talking to a frog the other day. And he told me that we are surrounded by water!' His friend looks at him with great scepticism: 'Water? Whats that? Show me some water!' International lawyers often find themselves focused on the practice of the law rather than the underlying theories. This book is an attempt to stir up 'the water' that international lawyers swim in. It analyses a range of theoretical approaches to international law and invites readers to engage with different ways of legal thinking in order to familiarize themselves with the water all around us, of which we hardly have any perception. The main aim of this book is to provide interested scholars, practitioners, and students of international law and other disciplines with an introduction to various international legal theories, their genealogies, and possible critiques. By providing an analytical approach to international legal theory, the book encourages readers to enhance their sensitivity to these different approaches and to consider how the presuppositions behind each theory affect analysis, research, and practice in international law. International Law Theories is intended to assist students, scholars, and practitioners in reflecting more generally about how knowledge is formed in the field.
The Assault on International Law
Author: Jens David Ohlin
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2014-12-22
Total Pages: 305
ISBN-13: 0199987424
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →International law presents a conceptual riddle. Why comply with it when there is no world government to enforce it? The United States has a long history of skepticism towards international law, but 9/11 ushered in a particularly virulent phase of American exceptionalism, as the US drifted away from international institutions and conventions. Although American politicians and their legal advisors are often the public face of this attack, the root of this movement is a coordinated and deliberate attack by law professors hostile to its philosophical foundations, including Eric Posner, Jack Goldsmith, Adrian Vermeule, and John Yoo. In a series of influential writings, they have claimed that since states are motivated primarily by self-interest, compliance with international law is nothing more than high-minded talk. These abstract arguments provide a foundation for dangerous legal conclusions: that international law is largely irrelevant to determining how and when terrorists can be captured or killed; that the US President alone should be directing the War on Terror without significant input from Congress or the judiciary; that US courts should not hear lawsuits alleging violations of international law; and that the US should block any international criminal court with jurisdiction over Americans. These polemical accounts have ultimately triggered America's pernicious withdrawal from international cooperation. In The Assault on International Law, Jens David Ohlin exposes the mistaken assumptions of these "New Realists," in particular their impoverished utilization of rational choice theory. In contrast, he provides an alternate vision of international law based on an innovative theory of human rationality. According to Ohlin, rationality requires that agents follow through on their plans and commitments even when faced with opportunities for defection, as long as the original plan was beneficial for the agent. Seen in the light of this planning theory of rational agency, international law is the product of nation-states cooperating to escape a brutish State of Nature-a result that is not only legally binding but also in each state's self-interest.
