Lecture #1: International Law in a Political Science Degree
Course structure: 3 parts
1: Theories and histories of IL
2: Structures and mechanics of IL
3: Core Issues of IL
What is law?
“Law is the recognized, mostly codified, legitimate standard of behaviour that binds
community together”
Law tends to have 3 essential properties:
1. Law is universal (applies to everyone equally)
2. Law is coercive (transgressions and violations are punished)
3. Law is open: individuals can establish their own relationships within the law and
shape it
Why have law?
Large societies need formal rules that can be enforced because:
1. You can make long term decisions
2. Order
3. Predictability of outcome (negative or positive)
4. You can trade with people who are far away
5. There is someone to enforce the rules when you have a dispute
Why International Law is relevant to IR
- IR is the study of relations between actors across national borders
- IL informs foregin policy decisions
- IL is a way of solving problems with a global scope
- IL has expanded significantly in the past century and continues to accelerate
International Law and Foreign Policy
IL has played an outsized role in informing foreign policy
President Coolidge (1920)
Key aim of public policy is to reduce “domestic and foregin relations to a system of laws” -
utilitarian way of observing this
President Obama’s National Security Strategy of 2010
“We should strengthen enforcement of IL and our commitment to engage..”
,What is International Law?
2 types of international law:
1. Public international law - “ a set of rules that states create to regulate and order their
own behaviour and that are intended to bind states in their relationship with each
other”
- PIL is what IR scholars study when they say “International law”
- PIL is what we are going to look at in our course
- PIL is what you would intuitively consider to be “International law”
- PIL are for instance: human rights, WTO,
2. Private international law (conflict of laws) - “areas of conflict between national
laws and international actors (people, companies/corporations, or legal entities)
- Covers areas dealing with the class of domestic laws and domestic laws with
international laws
- Traces its history to Roman Law and has not been the focus of IR scholars
- Focuses on businesses that have contractual obligations in multiple countries
and jurisdictions
- Focuses on legal disagreements between private parties
- Dispute settlement (arbitration) outside of domestic legal frameworks
Differences between IL and Domestic Law
Domestic Law:
- Formal rules have some type of enforcement
- Sovereign makes law and uses force to make people comply
International law:
- No sovereign → no legitimate enforcer
- Force plays a very limited part in enforcement
- Other forms of sanctions are required to make states comply
,Theories of IL in IR
Theoretical perspectives in IR have very different views of IL
They disagree over what motivates actors
1. Realist approaches
2. Functionalists approaches
3. Constructivists approaches
4. Marxists approaches
5. Critical approaches
a) Realism
- Analytical focus is on state power and state interest
- IL reflects the power and interests of states
- There is no need to explain the proliferation of legal agreements as the questions is
not central to world politics
b) Functionalism/Rationalism
- Look at the world: it is organized in large cooperative structures! Clearly nation states
must care about IL
- States enjoy order and the benefits that come with cooperation over time
- States spent money and time to justifying their actions
- They accept the central realist tenet of rational egoism but argue that realists have
focused on too narrow on short term gains - utilitarian group says this
- Interest is not a zero sum game = all state can win if they work together
- International law matters!
c) Constructivist Approaches
- Focus less on materialistic and strategic approaches to theorize IL and more on
sociological and contextual views
- There is an inherently sociological nature of the development of international regimes
- Understanding the actors’ purposes and intentions is central to understanding the
existence and operation of IL
- IL reflects and informs struggles over international legitimacy
- IL is a reflection of social purpose!
, Why do states sign international legal agreements?
Divergent ways in each theories make sense of them:
1. Realism = primarily for cynical reasons; little expectation of compliance
2. Functionalism = states want to realize joint future gains
→ cost of committing are lower than the benefits to be gained (for both)
3. Constructivists = states commit because they become persuaded of the
appropriateness of such action and to fashion themselves as a legitimate state (i.e. to
fashion themselves as a state)
How is international law implemented?
Different legal system absorb international law in different ways
Two broad theories of understanding the interaction of international law with domestic law:
1. Dualism
- Heinrich Triepel
- Very prevalent in common law jurisdictions (UK, USA, India)
- Requires a translation for one to be implemented into the other - intl and
domestic are completely different from another
- Intl law has to be domestic law also to be intl law (treaty has to be approved in
legislature to become domestic law)
- Emphasises the difference between national and international law
- For IL to be valid it needs to be adopted and translated into national law
- National law has priority over IL that has not been incorporated!
- In more extreme cases, dualist hold that IL does not exist as law
2. Monism
- Hans Kelsen
- Intl law and domestic law are one unit - hierarchical relationship
- Mainly prevalent in civil law jurisdictions (Netherlands, Germany, France,
Italy…) - Roman law
- The international legal framework and the internal legal system form a unity
- In a monist state, IL does not need to be translated into national law → it
has direct domestic effect
- In extreme cases, monists hold that national law is null and void if it
contradicts with international law
*Potential exam open question*
Course structure: 3 parts
1: Theories and histories of IL
2: Structures and mechanics of IL
3: Core Issues of IL
What is law?
“Law is the recognized, mostly codified, legitimate standard of behaviour that binds
community together”
Law tends to have 3 essential properties:
1. Law is universal (applies to everyone equally)
2. Law is coercive (transgressions and violations are punished)
3. Law is open: individuals can establish their own relationships within the law and
shape it
Why have law?
Large societies need formal rules that can be enforced because:
1. You can make long term decisions
2. Order
3. Predictability of outcome (negative or positive)
4. You can trade with people who are far away
5. There is someone to enforce the rules when you have a dispute
Why International Law is relevant to IR
- IR is the study of relations between actors across national borders
- IL informs foregin policy decisions
- IL is a way of solving problems with a global scope
- IL has expanded significantly in the past century and continues to accelerate
International Law and Foreign Policy
IL has played an outsized role in informing foreign policy
President Coolidge (1920)
Key aim of public policy is to reduce “domestic and foregin relations to a system of laws” -
utilitarian way of observing this
President Obama’s National Security Strategy of 2010
“We should strengthen enforcement of IL and our commitment to engage..”
,What is International Law?
2 types of international law:
1. Public international law - “ a set of rules that states create to regulate and order their
own behaviour and that are intended to bind states in their relationship with each
other”
- PIL is what IR scholars study when they say “International law”
- PIL is what we are going to look at in our course
- PIL is what you would intuitively consider to be “International law”
- PIL are for instance: human rights, WTO,
2. Private international law (conflict of laws) - “areas of conflict between national
laws and international actors (people, companies/corporations, or legal entities)
- Covers areas dealing with the class of domestic laws and domestic laws with
international laws
- Traces its history to Roman Law and has not been the focus of IR scholars
- Focuses on businesses that have contractual obligations in multiple countries
and jurisdictions
- Focuses on legal disagreements between private parties
- Dispute settlement (arbitration) outside of domestic legal frameworks
Differences between IL and Domestic Law
Domestic Law:
- Formal rules have some type of enforcement
- Sovereign makes law and uses force to make people comply
International law:
- No sovereign → no legitimate enforcer
- Force plays a very limited part in enforcement
- Other forms of sanctions are required to make states comply
,Theories of IL in IR
Theoretical perspectives in IR have very different views of IL
They disagree over what motivates actors
1. Realist approaches
2. Functionalists approaches
3. Constructivists approaches
4. Marxists approaches
5. Critical approaches
a) Realism
- Analytical focus is on state power and state interest
- IL reflects the power and interests of states
- There is no need to explain the proliferation of legal agreements as the questions is
not central to world politics
b) Functionalism/Rationalism
- Look at the world: it is organized in large cooperative structures! Clearly nation states
must care about IL
- States enjoy order and the benefits that come with cooperation over time
- States spent money and time to justifying their actions
- They accept the central realist tenet of rational egoism but argue that realists have
focused on too narrow on short term gains - utilitarian group says this
- Interest is not a zero sum game = all state can win if they work together
- International law matters!
c) Constructivist Approaches
- Focus less on materialistic and strategic approaches to theorize IL and more on
sociological and contextual views
- There is an inherently sociological nature of the development of international regimes
- Understanding the actors’ purposes and intentions is central to understanding the
existence and operation of IL
- IL reflects and informs struggles over international legitimacy
- IL is a reflection of social purpose!
, Why do states sign international legal agreements?
Divergent ways in each theories make sense of them:
1. Realism = primarily for cynical reasons; little expectation of compliance
2. Functionalism = states want to realize joint future gains
→ cost of committing are lower than the benefits to be gained (for both)
3. Constructivists = states commit because they become persuaded of the
appropriateness of such action and to fashion themselves as a legitimate state (i.e. to
fashion themselves as a state)
How is international law implemented?
Different legal system absorb international law in different ways
Two broad theories of understanding the interaction of international law with domestic law:
1. Dualism
- Heinrich Triepel
- Very prevalent in common law jurisdictions (UK, USA, India)
- Requires a translation for one to be implemented into the other - intl and
domestic are completely different from another
- Intl law has to be domestic law also to be intl law (treaty has to be approved in
legislature to become domestic law)
- Emphasises the difference between national and international law
- For IL to be valid it needs to be adopted and translated into national law
- National law has priority over IL that has not been incorporated!
- In more extreme cases, dualist hold that IL does not exist as law
2. Monism
- Hans Kelsen
- Intl law and domestic law are one unit - hierarchical relationship
- Mainly prevalent in civil law jurisdictions (Netherlands, Germany, France,
Italy…) - Roman law
- The international legal framework and the internal legal system form a unity
- In a monist state, IL does not need to be translated into national law → it
has direct domestic effect
- In extreme cases, monists hold that national law is null and void if it
contradicts with international law
*Potential exam open question*
