Problems in International Law

Description

This course develops a new approach to international law.  It explores the underlying distinction between traditional international legal relationships among nation-states and the emerging ‘constitutional framework for global cooperation’.  

The proposition underpinning the course is that there exists today two kinds of international law:

•  the basic constitutional document of international relations (the UN Charter); and
•  all other international legal instruments – i.e. all other treaties;

and that law scholars and students should recognise this distinction, approaching them differently.

The distinction between ‘international law’ and ‘global constitutionalism’ has far-reaching implications for jurisprudence.  Traditionally, international law has been the product of ageement between any two or more sovereign nation-states – whether through bilateral or multilateral treaty-making.  Even if a treaty were multilateral, it would focus on a specific sectoral issue designed to guide state behaviour – trade, biodiversity, aviation, space activity, arms control, humanitarian conduct, regional cooperation.  

The course will focus, inter alia, on what the further elements of global constitutionalism there might be in the early 21st century, (including perhaps, in addition to those identified above, global environmental law; international criminal law and humanitarian law).  It will explore the issues surrounding the capacity of the Charter for constitutional renewal.