The International Court of Justice at The Hague is the principal judicial organ of the UN, and the successor of the Permanent Court of International Justice (1923–1946), which was the first real permanent court of justice at the international level. This 2005 book analyses the groundbreaking contribution of the Permanent Court to international law, both in terms of judicial technique and the development of legal principle. The book draws on archival material left by judges and other persons involved in the work of the Permanent Court, giving fascinating insights into many of its most important decisions and the individuals who made them (Huber, Anzilotti, Moore, Hammerskjöld and others). At the same time it examines international legal argument in the Permanent Court, basing its approach on a developed model of international legal argument that stresses the intimate relationships between international and national lawyers and between international and national law.
The first World Court established to address international issues is today recognised as one among the previous important attempts at international pseudo-constitutionalism. The question of the PCIJ's contribution to the current constitutional debate is made all the more interesting because the Court declared itself to be a body responsible for the knowledge of international law. As such, it would be, thus, capable of taking an authoritative stance on the constitutional interpretation of international law.What emerges from the PCIJ's legacy is an image of international law as a legal order based on consensual grounds, ie the State's will, which does not allow to talk about its constitutional features. However, the great significance of the Court's decisions to the contemporary debate on the international constitutionalism consists in warning against the hasty search for analogies between international and national laws within the scope of their systemic underpinnings. The ups and downs of the PCIJ's decisions were conditioned by judges' capability (or lack thereof) to approach an international law that was independent of national law and, in this sense, autonomous. That is what the development of international legal argument in the Court's work depended on.
Excerpt from The Project of a Permanent Court of International Justice and Resolutions of the Advisory Committee of Jurists: Report and Commentary To the Board of Trustees of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace: Gentlemen: On the 19th day of April, 1917, the Board of Trustees, at its annual meeting, pledged the Endowment to take such steps as lay in its power to aid in removing the obstacles still standing in the way of the establishment of a truly Permanent Court of International Justice. The resolution in this behalf was worded as follows: Resolved, That the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace shall make a special effort to overcome the remaining obstacles to the establishment of an International Court of Justice, and to this end the Executive Committee is authorized and directed to take such action and at such time as it may deem proper. This resolution had, upon the motion of Mr. Andrew J. Montague, already been adopted by the Executive Committee at its meeting of January 4, 1917, and referred to the Board of Trustees for its approval. At the annual meeting of the Board of Trustees on May 5, 1920, Mr. Elihu Root, President of the Endowment and Chairman of its Board of Trustees, stated that he had accepted membership in an Advisory Committee of Jurists invited by the Council of the League of Nations to prepare a plan for a Permanent Court of International Justice. Mr. Root requested that the undersigned be given a leave of absence to accompany him in an advisory capacity. This request met with the unanimous approval of the Trustees. The undersigned therefore accompanied Mr. Root, attended the meetings and, on occasion, participated in its proceedings. In accordance with the practice of the Endowment, he presents the following report. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
International law is not merely a set of rules or processes, but is a professional activity practised by a diversity of figures, including scholars, judges, counsel, teachers, legal advisers and activists. Individuals may, in different contexts, play more than one of these roles, and the interactions between them are illuminating of the nature of international law itself. This collection of innovative, multidisciplinary and self-reflective essays reveals a bilateral process whereby, on the one hand, the professionalisation of international law informs discourses about the law, and, on the other hand, discourses about the law inform the professionalisation of the discipline. Intended to promote a dialogue between practice and scholarship, this book is a must-read for all those engaged in the profession of international law.
This book presents a critical view of international law as an argumentative practice that aims to 'depoliticise' international relations. Drawing from a range of materials, Koskenniemi demonstrates how international law becomes vulnerable to the contrasting criticisms of being either an irrelevant moralist Utopia or a manipulable façade for State interests. He examines the conflicts inherent in international law - sources, sovereignty, 'custom' and 'world order' - and shows how legal discourse about such subjects can be described in terms of a small number of argumentative rules. This book was originally published in English in Finland in 1989 and though it quickly became a classic, it has been out of print for some years. In 2006, Cambridge was proud to reissue this seminal text, together with a freshly written Epilogue in which the author both responds to critiques of the original work, and reflects on the effect and significance of his 'deconstructive' approach today.
To mark the fiftieth anniversary of the International Court of Justice, a distinguished group of international judges, practitioners and academics has undertaken a major review of its work. The chapters discuss the main areas of substantive law with which the Court has been concerned, and the more significant aspects of its practice and procedure in dealing with cases before it. It discusses the role of the Court in the international legal order and its relationship with the political organs of the United Nations. The thirty-three chapters are presented under five headings: the Court; the sources and evidence of international law; substance of international law; procedural aspects of the Court's work; the Court and the United Nations. It has been prepared in honour of Sir Robert Jennings, judge and sometime President of the Court.
