International Law: Politics and Values (From the American Legal Library)

Author: (American) Louis Henkin
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-09-12
Features: This volume is based on the series of lectures titled "General Courses" delivered by the author at the International Law Faculty in The Hague in July 1989. Like these lectures, this volume does not intend to be a comprehensive treatise on all fields of international law, but rather to examine in particular the main issues of traditional international law, elaborate on its new developments, and re-examine its assumptions and premises. This volume is grounded in three propositions. The first proposition concerns law as politics and international law as law within a political system. Today, this political system includes over 180 independent states, and the inherent autonomy of states indicates political (and economic-cultural) diversity within a pluralistic and fragmented system, while international law serves as the common norms expressed in regulatory terms within this system. The second proposition explores how changes in international law reflect the evolving values and objectives of the international political system. This will trace how humanity, through law embodying the ideals of traditional state systems, pursues contemporary dual objectives: safeguarding the right of each state to choose its system and achieve its goals, while promoting the development of individual human rights and the welfare of each society. The third proposition examines the development trends in legal thought, namely, the shift from "conceptualism" to "functionalism," from deducing abstract principles through logic to addressing practical needs and resolving various new and old issues.
These propositions run through the chapters of this volume, but this does not mean they are limited to the three propositions alone. I hope these propositions will add new perspectives and help understand the nature and functioning of international law within the international political system at the turn of the century. Inevitably, this volume reflects certain personal views and the perspectives of other scholars, primarily American. In many important respects, these views have gradually taken shape under the auspices of American law schools over the past eighty-plus years of research and were ultimately published in Restatement of Foreign Relations Law of the United States, Third Edition (1987). The Restatement, for which I served as a reporter along with three other American professors, has served as a guide and reference for many American lawyers and scholars, as well as some renowned international consulting institutions. Therefore, this volume cites the Restatement as an authoritative version newly released by the relevant institution.