INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS BLOCK 2 STUDY NOTES
CHAPTER 5: FRAMING INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS: THE ROLE OF LAWS AND
ORGANIZATIONS
WHAT IS INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS?
Explicit rules that stipulate the rights and the obligations that states have with
respect to other states or other actors covered by the law.
Rights and obligations refer to what a state may legally do when interacting with
other states or relevant actors, and the kinds of behavior it may legally expect
others to undertake.
These rights and obligations about behavior are usually stated quite clearly in the
context of international law in the form of:
Prescriptions: Actions that the state should or may elect to take.
Proscriptions: Prohibitions of actions that the state should not take
towards other states or relevant actors.
Today’s international law on international trade is set forth by the World Trade
Organization (WTO) which came into effect in January 1995.
TYPES OF INTERNATIONAL LAW
Most international law takes the form of written treaties that are accepted by
signatories through some process of national ratification.
A treaty is a formal agreement between 2 or more states designed to settle a
dispute or set down guidelines for future action.
There are 2 general types of law-creating treaties:
Universal international laws: Constructed and recognized by all or most
states in the international system.
Non-universal international laws: Directed towards concerns of states in a
particular region.
Statutory international law: Written laws that are agreed upon and codified by
participating states.
Example: Charter of the United Nations and WTO treaty.
Customary international law: Legal norms that, while not written down as formal
law, have come to be seen by states as having some capacity to control their
behavior.
Example: Long standing injunctions against genocide and slavery.
, Some international laws address how states, individuals, multinational
corporations and international institutions should regard one another.
Examples:
International human rights law: Seeks to create obligations on how
governments should behave toward their national citizens.
International Investment laws: Create rules by which multinational
corporations and national governments resolve disputes arising from the
operations of foreign companies within a state’s borders.
TYPES OF INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS
International organization: An ongoing association or body with an international
membership, scope and presence established by a treaty.
International organizations often have states as members and are formed to help
states implement their obligations under a relevant international law or
agreement, and to monitor compliance of states with the terms of that accord.
They also help states resolve disputes within the domain covered by the law or
agreement and identify ways by which the original arrangement can be modified
to attain improved outcomes for all members.
1. Non-governmental organizations: Involve private actors rather than
states and seek to influence world politics typically in specific issue
areas. (E.g. Human Rights Watch)
2. Intergovernmental organizations: Associations of sovereign states
who work on issues of common interest. (E.g. NATO (domain of
National Security) and WTO (domain of political economy)
3. Supranational organizations: Member states grant some
meaningful degree of authority to the organization in one or more
policy areas. (E.g. The EU is both an intergovernmental and
supranational organization: Member states no longer exercise
independent control over their trade policies, but instead have
granted the EU the legal and political authority to negotiate binding
trade agreements on their behalf).
Formal international organizations: Came into being as a result of formal
international treaties among states.
Examples: UN; EU; WTO
Informal international organizations: No international laws serve as an
underpinning.
Examples: Group 7 of industrialized countries and a larger group 20 countries.
DIFFERENTIATING INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION FROM
INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTIONS:
, International Institutions: Sets of rules, principles and expectations that govern
interstate interaction. (E.g. WTO)
Based on either formal or informal understanding.
International organization: Based on legal and formal laws.
DOMESTIC VS INTERNATIONAL LAWS
Domestic laws: Laws within states.
o International laws: Laws between states
Within nation-states citizens are subject to the laws of the land. There is a
system for the enforcement of national law that does not include actors
who find themselves in a dispute. (E.g. police force, judges, criminal
ENFORCEMENT
penalties)
o At the international level, states are only bound by the laws and treaties
they sign. There is no centralized governmental authority at the
international level to which states can take others when they believe they
have been harmed and need to seek legal redress−states are in a self-
help legal system.
In most national political systems there is a sense of how laws in different
areas relate to one another. (E.g. Constitutions in US, Japan, SA). In a
place like UK with no constitutions there is an accumulation of experience,
including court systems, that produce in political leaders and citizens a set
HIERARCHY AMONG
of stable expectations about how law is made and how different laws are
brought.
o The international legal system in contrast is fragmented. Instead of a
single, relatively coherent system of civil and criminal law there are islands
of international law such as the law regarding commerce or the law
LAWS
regarding human rights.
How legal decisions of the past impinge on or control legal decisions in the
present, are very important.
PRECEDENT
THE ROLE
o Less certainty about what the law is in a given area and how a case ought
to be decided.
OF
S
In most domestic legal systems, a person who is being sued in a civil
THE AUTOMATICITY
matter or has been charged with an offense to be tried in a criminal
OF JURISDICTION
proceeding has no right to refuse to be brought to court, although they can
, ask a judge to move the proceedings to another location if they have a
reasonable fear that they cannot have a fair trial where the offense
occurred.
o In international law, there is no automatic requirement that a state respond
to another state who seeks redress in an international court. Instead, the
respondent state must give its permission to be brought to a particular
court.
DOMAINS OF INTERNATIONAL LAW AND ORGANIZATION
WHEN MAY STATES LAUNCH WARS?
Jus de bellum is the international law that stipulates the legitimate grounds under
which a state may go to war. In today’s world that law is found in Chapter VII of
the UN charter. (UN Security Council)
The Un was founded in San Francisco, 1945. (51 members)
Today the UN has 193 members.
UN proscription: “All members shall refrain in their international relations from the
threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of
any state or in any other manner inconsistent with the purposes of the UN.”
UN prescriptions: “All members shall settle their international disputes peacefully
in such a manner that international peace and security, and justice, are not
endangered.”
9 out of 15 security council members need to vote in favor of the resolution to
authorize force legally.
The authorization cannot sustain a no-vote by any of the 5 permanent
members of the UN Security Council. (Article 27 of UN Charter)
There is one major exception on the role of the Security Council in determine
when, military force may be employed and that is in the case of self-defense.
HUMANITARIAN INTERVENTION AND ‘RESPONNSIBILITY TO PROTECT’.
International law of war initiation regulates when and how it is acceptable for
states to initiate the use of force against each other.
Laws regulating the way governments conduct war are codified in the Geneva
Conventions.
World war II marks the beginning of international humanitarian law.
In 1948, members of the UN approved the Convention for the prevention and
punishment of the crime of genocide.
International humanitarian law has evolved in 3 major steps:
1. International Tribunals: Ad hoc legal proceedings that are less
formal than court proceedings and applied to specific international
CHAPTER 5: FRAMING INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS: THE ROLE OF LAWS AND
ORGANIZATIONS
WHAT IS INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS?
Explicit rules that stipulate the rights and the obligations that states have with
respect to other states or other actors covered by the law.
Rights and obligations refer to what a state may legally do when interacting with
other states or relevant actors, and the kinds of behavior it may legally expect
others to undertake.
These rights and obligations about behavior are usually stated quite clearly in the
context of international law in the form of:
Prescriptions: Actions that the state should or may elect to take.
Proscriptions: Prohibitions of actions that the state should not take
towards other states or relevant actors.
Today’s international law on international trade is set forth by the World Trade
Organization (WTO) which came into effect in January 1995.
TYPES OF INTERNATIONAL LAW
Most international law takes the form of written treaties that are accepted by
signatories through some process of national ratification.
A treaty is a formal agreement between 2 or more states designed to settle a
dispute or set down guidelines for future action.
There are 2 general types of law-creating treaties:
Universal international laws: Constructed and recognized by all or most
states in the international system.
Non-universal international laws: Directed towards concerns of states in a
particular region.
Statutory international law: Written laws that are agreed upon and codified by
participating states.
Example: Charter of the United Nations and WTO treaty.
Customary international law: Legal norms that, while not written down as formal
law, have come to be seen by states as having some capacity to control their
behavior.
Example: Long standing injunctions against genocide and slavery.
, Some international laws address how states, individuals, multinational
corporations and international institutions should regard one another.
Examples:
International human rights law: Seeks to create obligations on how
governments should behave toward their national citizens.
International Investment laws: Create rules by which multinational
corporations and national governments resolve disputes arising from the
operations of foreign companies within a state’s borders.
TYPES OF INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS
International organization: An ongoing association or body with an international
membership, scope and presence established by a treaty.
International organizations often have states as members and are formed to help
states implement their obligations under a relevant international law or
agreement, and to monitor compliance of states with the terms of that accord.
They also help states resolve disputes within the domain covered by the law or
agreement and identify ways by which the original arrangement can be modified
to attain improved outcomes for all members.
1. Non-governmental organizations: Involve private actors rather than
states and seek to influence world politics typically in specific issue
areas. (E.g. Human Rights Watch)
2. Intergovernmental organizations: Associations of sovereign states
who work on issues of common interest. (E.g. NATO (domain of
National Security) and WTO (domain of political economy)
3. Supranational organizations: Member states grant some
meaningful degree of authority to the organization in one or more
policy areas. (E.g. The EU is both an intergovernmental and
supranational organization: Member states no longer exercise
independent control over their trade policies, but instead have
granted the EU the legal and political authority to negotiate binding
trade agreements on their behalf).
Formal international organizations: Came into being as a result of formal
international treaties among states.
Examples: UN; EU; WTO
Informal international organizations: No international laws serve as an
underpinning.
Examples: Group 7 of industrialized countries and a larger group 20 countries.
DIFFERENTIATING INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION FROM
INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTIONS:
, International Institutions: Sets of rules, principles and expectations that govern
interstate interaction. (E.g. WTO)
Based on either formal or informal understanding.
International organization: Based on legal and formal laws.
DOMESTIC VS INTERNATIONAL LAWS
Domestic laws: Laws within states.
o International laws: Laws between states
Within nation-states citizens are subject to the laws of the land. There is a
system for the enforcement of national law that does not include actors
who find themselves in a dispute. (E.g. police force, judges, criminal
ENFORCEMENT
penalties)
o At the international level, states are only bound by the laws and treaties
they sign. There is no centralized governmental authority at the
international level to which states can take others when they believe they
have been harmed and need to seek legal redress−states are in a self-
help legal system.
In most national political systems there is a sense of how laws in different
areas relate to one another. (E.g. Constitutions in US, Japan, SA). In a
place like UK with no constitutions there is an accumulation of experience,
including court systems, that produce in political leaders and citizens a set
HIERARCHY AMONG
of stable expectations about how law is made and how different laws are
brought.
o The international legal system in contrast is fragmented. Instead of a
single, relatively coherent system of civil and criminal law there are islands
of international law such as the law regarding commerce or the law
LAWS
regarding human rights.
How legal decisions of the past impinge on or control legal decisions in the
present, are very important.
PRECEDENT
THE ROLE
o Less certainty about what the law is in a given area and how a case ought
to be decided.
OF
S
In most domestic legal systems, a person who is being sued in a civil
THE AUTOMATICITY
matter or has been charged with an offense to be tried in a criminal
OF JURISDICTION
proceeding has no right to refuse to be brought to court, although they can
, ask a judge to move the proceedings to another location if they have a
reasonable fear that they cannot have a fair trial where the offense
occurred.
o In international law, there is no automatic requirement that a state respond
to another state who seeks redress in an international court. Instead, the
respondent state must give its permission to be brought to a particular
court.
DOMAINS OF INTERNATIONAL LAW AND ORGANIZATION
WHEN MAY STATES LAUNCH WARS?
Jus de bellum is the international law that stipulates the legitimate grounds under
which a state may go to war. In today’s world that law is found in Chapter VII of
the UN charter. (UN Security Council)
The Un was founded in San Francisco, 1945. (51 members)
Today the UN has 193 members.
UN proscription: “All members shall refrain in their international relations from the
threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of
any state or in any other manner inconsistent with the purposes of the UN.”
UN prescriptions: “All members shall settle their international disputes peacefully
in such a manner that international peace and security, and justice, are not
endangered.”
9 out of 15 security council members need to vote in favor of the resolution to
authorize force legally.
The authorization cannot sustain a no-vote by any of the 5 permanent
members of the UN Security Council. (Article 27 of UN Charter)
There is one major exception on the role of the Security Council in determine
when, military force may be employed and that is in the case of self-defense.
HUMANITARIAN INTERVENTION AND ‘RESPONNSIBILITY TO PROTECT’.
International law of war initiation regulates when and how it is acceptable for
states to initiate the use of force against each other.
Laws regulating the way governments conduct war are codified in the Geneva
Conventions.
World war II marks the beginning of international humanitarian law.
In 1948, members of the UN approved the Convention for the prevention and
punishment of the crime of genocide.
International humanitarian law has evolved in 3 major steps:
1. International Tribunals: Ad hoc legal proceedings that are less
formal than court proceedings and applied to specific international
