![]() (…) From the point of view of a weak state sacrificed to it, the balance of power must appear as a brutal principle. Here is an institution which offends against everyday notions of justice (…) by sacrificing the interests of small states, which may be absorbed or partitioned in the interests of the balance. Hedley Bull has highlighted the primacy of the institution of the balance of power for international order: Solemn non-recognition of annexation (the Stimson doctrine) has to yield when the changing balance of power (Yalta) dictates acceptance of a new fact constellation. 3įor realists then, the use of relevant international legal concepts in the Baltic case reflects changing power relations. Nevertheless, in certain aspects the positivist doctrine of international law and realist approach to international relations share far more common assumptions than previously recognized-such as the focus on States as main actors in international relations and law. If international law does not matter, then the field of study of international lawyers can only be marginal at best. It is easy to understand that-and why-the attitudes of international law scholars towards realist arguments have been mainly rejective. Born, in its more recent version, out of the disillusionment caused by World War II, 2 realism is probably still the most influential, even archetypical, explanation of world politics within the discipline of international relations theory. Realism is a theory about the predominance of power politics and, consequently, about the relative non-importance of international law in international relations. ![]() No ‘legalistic-moralistic’ (George Kennan) attempts to establish the rule of law in international relations can do away with the fact that power remains the main determining factor in international politics. Without centralized power comparable to domestic legal systems, the international system of States must be characterized as anarchical. Incidentally, Martti Koskenniemi, a leading New Stream scholar in international law, has-on the basis of the case of the Baltic States-given a new interpretation to the concept of State continuity.įor realism, in both its classic and structural interpretations, the very project of international law is inherently utopian. After having discussed realist views, we turn to some explanations given by the New Haven approach and New Stream scholarship which are both relatively new schools of thought that have-from the legal scholars’ camp-most extensively dealt with the relationship of law to politics in international relations. The following discusses how the conflict between international legal theory and practice in the Baltic case has been treated in the literature.Īny lawyer’s discussion of delimitation of the political from the legal must start with the most challenging of those theories, namely a non-legal (and sometimes anti-legal) school of thought which broadly denies the independent value of international law and legal analysis for an understanding of international relations (realism). What should be the intellectual position of the international lawyer with respect to politics? 1 To what extent should legal doctrine accommodate fluctuations of State behaviour, often caused by power politics, as ‘custom’? While mainstream international legal scholarship has tended to ignore the problem altogether, critical schools of thought have provided ever more imaginative, provocative and controversial solutions to this problem. The crux of the problem seems to be whether and, if so, how to integrate political aspects of international relations in international law doctrine, so that international law would be neither irrelevant (too utopian), nor lose its autonomy vis-à-vis power politics. The analysis of State practice in the preceding chapter revives a fundamental theoretical problem: namely, what should State continuity as a legal concept mean or imply, in particular when statehood has been de facto disrupted for such a long period as with the Baltic States? If power politics plays such a profound role, as suggested, how should we interpret a certain discrepancy between status and rights? Does abstract legal status have any immediate normative consequences, as suggested by Krystyna Marek and other scholars? Should abstract legal status have a separate meaning at all or should international lawyers concentrate their attention solely on concrete rights and duties?
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