Conclusion to Part I

Abstract

Overlooking the ground covered by Chaps. 3–5, it may be observed that both Chaps. 3 and 5 reflected the alternation between the framework of obligation and the framework of authorization. In Chap. 3, this reflection was projected by international judicial practice. The identification of the framework of obligation and the framework of authorization in both the Case of the S.S. “Lotus” and Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons highlights that the problem of the structure and function of public international law is not something peculiar to the Case of the S.S. “Lotus”, superseded after the blossoming of the law of cooperation post WW II. Rather, its neglected prominence in Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons demonstrates that it is an issue which pre-structures and pre-determines the solutions to the problems of the twenty-first century. Chapter 3 culminated in the identification of a reformulated framework, consisting, so to speak, of a merger of the framework of obligation and the framework of authorization. That merger was made possible by relinquishing the mutual exclusivity of these frameworks. At the same time, this implied that the structure of the reformulated framework is not exclusively vertical, because there is no entity which precedes and explains the concept of (public international) law.