Abstract
At the turn of this century, the editors of a special issue of the journal International Organization suggested that a greater ‘move to law’ was occurring and that a trend towards the ‘legalization of world politics’ was taking place.1 While this view was contemporaneously criticised as presenting a simplistic conception of law, one which failed to adequately account for the dynamic interaction between norms and policies and between legal and political actors,2 the basic insight that international law and politics intersected seemed undeniable. The 2003 Iraq invasion shook this view. Realists (and ‘neo-cons’ who thought of themselves as realists) were quick to point out that hard power was back – if indeed it had ever gone – and that any ‘liberal moment’ that had emerged in the 1990s (evidenced by robust collective action through the Security Council and the creation of the International Criminal Court, among other things) had ended.3 Many legal scholars perceived a ‘crisis in confidence’ for international law. Some responded to this ‘crisis’ by suggesting that international law reorient itself to new threats and new realities, chipping away for example at the 1945 United Nations (UN) Charter framework that restricted the use of force to narrow exceptions.4
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Notes
1. J. Goldstein, M. Kahler, R.O. Keohane and A.-M. Slaughter (2000) ‘Introduction: Legalization and World Politics’, International Organization, 54, 385. More generally, see W.A. Bogart (2002) Consequences: The Impact of Law and Its Complexity (Toronto: University of Toronto Press), p.5: ‘A survey of the last five decades of Western industrialised society would highlight, as a defining element, the insinuation of law into all manner of human endeavour.’ The present chapter draws on an earlier work by the author; see C.P.M. Waters (2009) ‘The Legalization of the Georgia-Russia Conflict of 2008’, Journal of Parliamentary and Political Law, 3, 351.
2. See, for example, J. Brunnée and S. Toope (2000) ‘International Law and Constructivism: Elements of an Interactional Theory of International Law’, Columbia Journal of Transnational Law, 39, 72. Brunnée and Toope suggest that the ‘legalisation’ view unwittingly accepts law as a binding, external force, without explaining where it comes from. By contrast, they argue for a focus on ‘the mutual generative normative activity of agents and structures in international law and politics’.
3. On the dismissal of ‘soft power’ by the Bush Administration, see, for example, J.S. Nye, Jr. (2004) ‘The Decline of America’s Soft Power: Why Washington Should Worry’ Foreign Affairs, 83, 16.
4. For a recent example, see N. Rostow (2009) ‘International Law and the Use of Force: A Plea for Realism’, Yale Journal of International Law, 34, 548.
5. C. Gray (2007) ‘A Crisis of Legitimacy for the UN Collective Security System?’, International & Comparative Law Quarterly, 56, 157.
6. D. McGoldrick (2004) From ‘9–11’ to the Iraq War 2003 (Oxford: Hart).
7. On empirically measuring the relevance of international law to politics, contrast J.L. Goldsmith and E.A. Posner (2005) The Limits of International Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press); with M. Scharf (2009) ‘International Law in Crisis: A Qualitative Empirical Contribution to the Compliance Debate’, Cardozo Law Review, 31, 46.
8. Indeed, the most vocal domestic opposition to the Russian government’s handling of the conflict was to the effect that the response to Georgian ‘aggression’ was insufficiently aggressive. H.-H. Schroder (2008) ‘ “A Short, Victorious War?” Russian Perspectives on the Caucasus Crisis’ in H.-H. Schroder (ed.) The Caucasus Crisis (Berlin: German Institute for International and Security Affairs), p. 8, online: http://www.swp-berlin.org/en/common/get_document.php?asset_id=5524. Though for a contrary view, one which argues that ‘being part of the international system has become a fundamental ambition of Russian foreign policy’, see N.N. Petro (2009) ‘The Legal Case for Russian Intervention in Georgia’, Fordham International Law Journal, 32, 1524.
9. H.-H. Schroder (2008) ‘Editorial: Georgia’, European Journal of International Law, 19, 896.
13. See G. Smith et al. (1998) Nation Building in the Post-Soviet Borderlands: The Politics of National Identities (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
14. See generally, R.G. Suny (1994) The Making of the Georgian Nation (Bloomington: Indiana University Press).
15. On the challenges facing the return of refugees/internally displaced persons to their homes of origin, see A. Smit (2006) ‘Property Law Aspects of Refugee and IDP Returns: Case Studies of Georgia and Kosovo’ in P. Shah (ed.) Migration, Diasporas and Legal Systems in Europe (London: Cavendish), as well as her chapter (Chapter 6) in this volume.
16. See C.P.M Waters (2005) ‘Rule of Law in the Secessionist States’ in C.P.M Waters (ed.) The State of Law in the South Caucasus (Basingstoke: Palgrave); and (2006) ‘Law in Places That Don’t Exist’, Denver Journal of International Law and Policy, 34, 401.
20. See Reference re Secession of Quebec, [1998] 2 S.C.R. 217; and, generally, J. Crawford (2006) The Creation of States in International Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
24. See C. Gray (2006) ‘The Use of Force and the International Legal Order’ in M.D. Evans (ed.) International Law, 2nd edn (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
29. S. Talmon (2008) ‘The Responsibility of Outside Powers for Acts of Secessionist Entities’, International and Comparative Law Quarterly, 58, 493.
30. J. Brunné and S. Toope (2004) ‘The Use of Force: International Law After Iraq’, International and Comparative Law Quarterly, 53, 797.
41. For an argument that the ECtHR faces a pattern of challenges to its authority from newer members of the CoE, see J.L. Cavallaro and S.E. Brewer (2008) ‘Reevaluating Regional Human Rights Litigation in the Twenty-First Century: The Case of the Inter-American Court’, American Journal of International Law, 102, 773.
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© 2010 Christopher P.M. Waters
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Waters, C.P.M. (2010). The Caucasus Conflict and the Role of Law. In: Green, J.A., Waters, C.P.M. (eds) Conflict in the Caucasus. Euro-Asian Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230292413_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230292413_2
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