The Role and Importance of the International Law in World Politics Essay Example for Free

The Role and Importance of the outside(a) Law in World Politics EssayInternational justness has been of increasing interest to scholars in recent decades, following s foreveral incidents that have severely challenged the concepts of how multinational order, peace, harmony, and justice between nations and states are maintained through the masking of an supranational system of rules and sanctions. (Huysmans, 2006 Slaughter, 1993,1995 Nijman, 2007 Stahn, 2007 Goddard Nexon, 2005) One of the most significant events was the 9-11 Twin Towers attack in the Unites States, which precluded renewed aggression on the Middle East, particularly Iraq and Afghanistan, and all different states considered to be aligned with the axis of evils or coddlers of religious and ideological extremism. The actions of the United States and its allies, particularly the attack on Afghanistan, deprived of international consensus, have understandably elevated questions about the relevance of internationa l legality, the legitimacy of torture, justification for pre-emptive use of military force, the rise of U.S. unilateralism, a crisis of the United Nations, etc. (Huysmans, 200612) In the same manner, this has encouraged some scholars to study how power constrains international law (or dooms it to irrelevance), how the goodly can harness international law to their ends, and how international law may reconfigure power in its avow right. (Steinberg Zasloff, 200664) The increased concern over the importance of international law has likewise gained more impetus as the world entered the era of globalization. Indeed, in no new(prenominal) time has the need for laws with global scope become more paramount as in the information age, when the rise of transnational crime syndicates as the subscribe consequence of a better global information net usage and communications infrastructure, as well as the widely changing norms and perceptions of many cultures (Bentivegna, 2006 341) has force d countries to work in untraditional ways to confront challenges and formulate solutions.It is in that respectfore not surprising for the debates over the significance of international law be centred upon what an increasing descend of scholars and critics have called the political science of international insecurity, which brings to the fore the problems on the conceptualization of the international legal infrastructure and the enforcement of its rules and sanctions.International Law, Politics, and PowerThe discourse of international law and its enforcement is unavoidably a discourse of semi semipolitical power and its outcomes in the international terrain. In its inception and early stages, however, it was not recognized in its inception and early increment that the two had a dialectical relationship, or indeed, that international law enforced and reinforced world politics in the same way that the latter impact the way the international system of policies and sanctions was structured. Doubtless, there remains a strong consensus today that the actually nature of international law is rooted on its dialectical relationship with the political motivations, behavioral patterns and concepts of identity of states. However, in order to determine the extent to which international law remains an important influence in the conduct of world politics, it would be beneficial to examine the development of the concept of international law with respect to its historical and sociological framework. While it may be conceded that there are diverging opinions on the role of international lawor of its consequence, if at allon international relations, the fact remains that it is presently dynamical today than any new(prenominal) time in history although the reason for its existence has been very much contested. The classic notion of international law fake that governing states was as easy as governing people, with its basic assumptions moored on the belief in the peoples and states, for that matterability to comply with rules and regulations. Underlying this belief was a concept of people as being inherently conformist based on a fixed set of norms that were universally accepted, largely influenced by those who believed in the rationality of law in the governance of societies which stipulated that legal rules and institutions did not arise out of the power of the coercive state but, rather, out of custom, consensus, and private ordering. (Steinberg Zasloff, 200666)International law was therefore optimistic in the outset, with the notion of its power perceived to be a function more of self-regulation among states rather than a product of force or coercion. An another(prenominal) important assumption was of international laws being a neutral, apolitical avenue in which to settle international disputes owing to its detachment from the sphere of politics. (Steinberg Zasloff, 2006 67)The rise of fascism, however, provided enough reason for a change in viewpoint. At the heart of this was the growing recognition that international law was useless if it had no power at all to stop the aggressive tendencies of some statesor if did not present itself as a threat enough to be suitable to effectively police nations. Hence, there was an increased popularization and acceptance of the argument that international law cannot be separated from the discourse of politics and of the multiplicity of political agendas within the international community. Scholars such as Morgenthau (1959502), for instance, suggested that universal moral principles, such as justice and equality, are capable of guiding political action merely to the extent that they have been given concrete content and have been related to political situations by society.This mirrored the general attitude of realists, who argued that international law could ever play more than an epiphenomenal role in the ordering of international life. (Slaughter-Burley, 1993206) Such an asserti on stemmed from the core belief of the realists that international law merely reflected the interests of powerful states, (Steinberg Zasloff, 2006 67) which encouraged some scholars of the realist tradition to assert that international law was inconsequential as it was beholden to the powerful and could be bent to suit the interests of powerful nations. (Slaughter, 19951 Kocs, 1994) Morgenthau (1967), for instance, illustrated how the issue of intervention into sovereign states, which was declared unacceptable by the international law, was often violated by powerful entities acting for the preservation of their interests, which suggested that economic and political imbalances in the worldwhere the richer economies were able to influence the political and legal structure and framework of the developing world by dangling foreign aidmake the international law inutile in reflecting the interests of the poor and the rich on an equal scale.There have been departures to these beliefs, nat urally, as new criticisms emerged from the constructivist camp which argued that interests and identities were inseparable from kind groups and as such, international law both reflects and reinforces identities and interests. (Steinberg Zasloff, 2006 82) Constructivists underlined the role of norms, identities and other socio-cultural phenomena in international politics, (Goddard Nexon, 2005 29) which assert that like cultural symbols, norms and identities in international law and politics are constantly created and recreated by its actors. (Kocs, 1994) Therefore, the role of the international law and its influence on the behavior of sovereign states is mediated upon by the prevailing beliefs and concepts of order, justice and peace.The predicament of Hegemonic Power Challenges to International LawThus, the central role of international law in the world, today when violent conflicts and inequalities have sharply divided the world, has transformed into that of an remainder of po wer, an expectation that is held by every individual and every society that ascribes to and believes in the tenets of democracy.The international law, through the international court, also functions as a last repository of justice for societies, and is instrumental in providing elusive justice to victims of human rights violations by despotic leaders and to victims of war atrocities that otherwise could not have sought damages from the domestic courts of their countries. (Stahn 2007) Whether the international law has been able to live up to these expectations is another matter, of course, and lately the power of the international law itself to maintain peace among states has been gravely challenged. after(prenominal) the Second World War the United States emerged as the new superpower, which would give the realists their bases for attacking the role of international law other than in maintaining the interests of the status quo. incidental events that unfolded in history, from th e Gulf War to the war on Afghanistan and the prolonged occupation of Iraq on the ground that it was harboring nuclear armaments have further highlighted the crises of the ability of international institutions such as the United Nations to enforce the international law. Another damning issue is the global climate change and the starkly bullheaded position of the United States and other developed countries on not signing the Kyoto Protocol to reduce greenhouse gases emission which puts the whole world at more peril than the nuclear armaments supposedly kept by North Korea and Iran that the U.S. has been keen on decimating.These events have therefore raised the questions of whether the U.N. and the international law are, as suggested by the realist camp, prevailed upon by powerful states so that these states are able to enjoy an exceptionality when it comes to demanding compliance by the international community. In the same manner, recent events such as the Iraq War which the U.S. has failed to justify based on the context of abating a clear and present danger, and despite the absence of consent from the international security council to launch the attack, have highlighted the gross imbalance of power that undermines the very existence of the international court as a mediating body in transnational conflicts. This is unfortunate indeed not only for the people of Iraq and Afghanistan for all other peoples in the developing world as the current stance of the U.S. and other powerful countries not only tramples upon the very foundations of the international law but sets a dangerous precedent to ignore the rules set upon by the international community. Likewise, it presents a cause with which other countries may willfully violate the sovereignty of others regardless of international laws and based only on its perceptions of insecurity. It is in this context that the role of international law must be evaluated upon, on whether it has balanced out the capabilities of d emocratic societies to immerse in fruitful relationships based on critical partnerships, or it has one-sidedly benefited the more powerful to the detriment of the weak, which it has, in recent years, appeared to be more and more given to do so.Works CitedBentivegna, S. (2006) Rethinking politics in the world of ICTs. European Journal of Communication, 21(3).Huysmans, J. (2006). International politics of insecurity Normativity, inwardness, and the exception. Security Dialogue, 37(1)11-29.Goddard, S.E. D.H. Nexon (2005). Paradigm lost? Reassessing speculation of international politics. European Journal of International Relations, 11(1)9-61.Kocs, S.A. (1994). Explaining the strategic behavior of states International law as system structure. International Studies Quarterly, 38(4)535-556.Morgenthau, H.J. (1959). Dilemmas of Politics. International personal business (Royal Institute of International Affairs 1944-), 35(4). 502.Morgenthau, H.J. (1967) To intervene or not to intervene. Foreign Affairs, 45(3) 425-36.Nijman, J.E. (2007). Paul Ricoeur and international law Beyond the end of the subject towards a reconceptualization of international legal personality. Leiden Journal of International Law, 20 25-64.Stahn, C. (2007). The international criminal court and the shortcomings of domestic legislation Introductory note. Leiden Journal of International Law, 20 165-166.Slaughter-Burley, A.M. (1993). International law and international relations theory A dual agenda. The American Journal of International Law, 87(2) 205-239.Slaughter, A.M. (1995). International law in a world of liberal states. EJIL, 6 1-39.Steinberg, R.H. J.M. Zasloff (2006). Power and international law. The American Journal of International Law, 100(1)64-87.