International law, International Relations theory and post-atrocity justice: Towards a genuine dialogue

International Affairs

Volumn 82, Issue 3, 2006, Pages 467-478

  Sriram, Chandra Lekha ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 33646734328     PISSN: 00205850     EISSN: 14682346     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-2346.2006.00545.x     Document Type: Review

References (69)

1. Anne-Marie Slaughter Burley, 'International law and international relations theory: a dual agenda', American Journal of International Law 87: 2, April 1993, pp. 205-39 at p 205, citing Richard Falk.
2. Kenneth W. Abbott, 'Modern international relations theory: a prospectus for international lawyers', Yale Journal of International Law 14: 2, Summer 1989, pp. 335-411.
3. Examples of dialogue and debate include Michael Byers, ed., The role of law in international politics: essays in international law and international relations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000);
4. J. Craig Barker, International law and international relations (London and New York: Continuum, 2001);
5. Jack L. Goldsmith and Eric A. Posner, The limits of international law (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004);
6. Christian Reus-Smit, ed., The politics of international law (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004);
7. Thomas Biersteker, Peter J. Spiro, Chandra Lekha Sriram and Veronica Raffo, eds, International law and international relations: bridging theory and practice (London: Routledge, forthcoming 2006).
8. Hedley Bull, The anarchical society: a study of order in world politics (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1971).
9. See Hugo Grotius, The rights of war ana peace, 3 vols (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2005).
10. Bull, Anarchical society;
11. Martin Wight, International theory: the three traditions (London: Holmes & Meier, 1992).
12. Thucydides, The history of the Peloponnesian War, trans. Rex Warner (New York: Penguin Classics, 1954);
13. E. H. Carr, The twenty years' crisis: an introduction to the study of international relations (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2001);
14. Kenneth Waltz, Theory of international politics (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1979).
15. See Slaughter Burley, 'International law and international relations theory'.
16. This is not to say that there were not exceptions. After attending law school, I was able to write my Ph.D. thesis with, among others, Richard Falk, an international lawyer teaching in a political science department.
17. Robert O. Keohane, After hegemony: cooperation and discord in the world political economy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995);
18. Abram Chayes and Antonia Handler Chayes, The new sovereignty: compliance with international regulatory agreements (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998);
19. Robert Keohane and Lisa Martin, 'The promise of institutionalist theory', International Security 20: 1, Summer 1995, pp. 39-51.
20. As Slaughter Hurley notes of the institutionalists of the 19705, they often rediscovered law but refused to recognize it as such. Slaughter Burley, 'International law and international relations theory', p. 219.
21. See International Organization 54:3, Summer 2000, a special issue devoted to 'Legalization and world polities', edited by Judith Goldstein, Miles Kahler, Robert O. Keohane and Anne-Marie Slaughter.
22. Martha Finnemore and Kathryn Sikkink, 'International norm dynamics and political change', International Organization 52: 4, Autumn 1998, pp. 887-917;
23. Alexander Wendt, 'Anarchy is what states make of it: the social construction of power polities', International Organization 46: 2, Spring 1991, pp. 391-425;
24. Alexander Wendt, Social theory of international politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999).
25. See e.g. ' Symposium on method in international law', American Journal of International Law 93: 2, April 1999.
26. The 'Symposium on method in international law' offered seven approaches; certain of these, such as feminist international law and critical international legal studies, I do not include here for reasons of space.
27. John Austin, The province of jurisprudence determined (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), lecture 5.
28. H. L. A. Hart, The concept of law (Oxford Clarendon, 1961). Cf.
29. Hans Kelsen, Principles of international law (New York: Rinehart, 1952).
30. Steven R. Ratner and Anne-Marie Slaughter, 'Appraising the methods of international law: a prospectus for readers', American Journal of International Law 93: 2, April 1999, pp. 291-302 (part of the larger symposium on method noted above).
31. See e.g. Myres S. McDougal, Harold D. Lastwell and Lung-Chu Chen, Human rights and world public order: the basic policies of an international law of human dignity (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1980).
32. See Harold Hongju Koh, 'The 1998 Frankel Lecture: bringing international law home', Houston Law Review 35, 1998, p. 623;
33. 'The "Haiti paradigm" in United States human rights policy', Yale Law Journal 103, 1994, pp. 2391-2;
34. 'How is international human rights law enforced?', Indiana Law Journal 74 (1999), p. 1397;
35. 'Transnational legal process', Nebraska Law Review 75, 1996, p. 181;
36. 'Transnational public law litigation', Yale Law Journal 100, 1991, pp. 3347, 2358-75;
37. 'Why do nations obey international law?', Yale Law Journal 106, 1997, p. 2599.
38. Amnon Reichman, '"When we sit to judge we are being judged": the Israeli GSS case, ex parte Pinochet and domestic/global deliberation', Cardozo Journal of International and Comparative Law 9, 2001, pp. 41-103;
39. Anne-Marie Slaughter, 'Judicial globalization', Virginia Journal of International Law 40, 2000, pp. 1103-14;
40. Diane F. Orentlicher, 'Whose justice? Reconciling universal jurisdiction with democratic principles', in Biersteker et al., eds, International law and international relations.
41. A useful example of the application of IR theory to this issue is Kenneth W. Abbott, 'International relations theory, international law, and the regime governing atrocities in internal conflicts', American Journal of International Law 93: 2, April 1999, pp. 361-79 (part of the larger symposium on method noted above).
42. See also Gary Jonathan Bass, Stay the hand of vengeance; the politics of war crimes tribunals (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001).
43. The literature on transitional justice and mass atrocity is too vast to cite here. Key texts include Neil Kritz, ed., Transitional justice: how emerging democracies reckon with former regimes (Washington DC: USIP Press, 1995)
44. and Priscilla Hayner, Unspeakable truths: confronting state terror and atrocity (New York: Routledge, 2005).
45. For a brief discussion of the evolution of the field, see Chandra Lekha Sriram, 'Transitional justice comes of age: enduring lessons and challenges', Berkeley Journal of International Law 23: 2, 2006, pp. 101-18.
46. The three theoretical approaches dealt with here are far from the entirety of IR theory, but are perhaps most relevant to the question at hand, and authors advocating any of these three have, to date, had the most to say about it.
47. Brad R. Roth, 'Liberalism, anti-sovereigntism, and excesses in the drive against impunity'
48. and Chandra Lekha Sriram, 'Externalizing justice through universal jurisdiction - problems and prospects', both in Finnish Yearbook of International Law 12, 2001, address these problems in different ways.
49. Jack Snyder and Leslie Vinjamuri, 'Trials and errors: principle and pragmatism in strategies of international justice', International Security 38: 3, 2004, especially pp. 11-2.5, discussing the logic of consequences.
50. Ellen Lutz and Kathryn Sikkink, 'The justice cascade: the evolution and impact of foreign human rights in Latin America', Chicago Journal of International Law 2, Spring 2001;
51. see also Thomas Risse and Kathryn Sikkink, 'The socialization of international human rights norms into domestic practice', in Thomas Risse, Stephen C. Ropp and Kathryn Sikkink, eds, The power of human rights: international norms and domestic change (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999).
52. Payam Akhavam, 'Justice in The Hague, peace in the former Yugoslavia?', Human Rights Quarterly 20, 1999; in an interview with the author (Freetown, Sierra Leone, 6 July 2004), David Crane, the prosecutor for the Special Court for Sierra Leone, repeatedly emphasized the importance of the tribunal's symbolic effect, demonstrating the unacceptability of the atrocities committed during that country's war.
53. Andrew Moravcsik, 'The origin of liuman rights regimes: democratic delegation in postwar Europe', International Organization 54: 2, Spring 2000; and Bass, Stay the hand of vengeance, both use and demonstrate the limits of this theoretical paradigm, in the creation of human rights regimes and of international criminal tribunals, respectively.
54. Chandra Lekha Sriram, Confronting past human rights violations: justice vs. peace in times of transition (London: Frank Cass, 2004)
55. and Globalizing justice for mass atrocity; a revolution in accountability (London: Routledge, 2005);
56. Chandra Lekha Srirani and Youssef Mahmoud, 'Bringing security back in: international relations theory and moving beyond the 'justice vs. peace' dilemma in transitional societies', in Biersteker et al., eds, International law and international relations.
57. Bruno Simma and Andreas L. Paulus, 'The responsibility of individuals for human rights abuses in internal conflicts: a positivist view', American Journal of International Law 93: 2, April 1999, pp. 302-16.
58. Indeed, Simma and Paulus assert that positivism is 'an ideal tool for stocktaking': 'The responsibility of individuals for human rights abuses in internal conflicts', p. 308.
59. For more on Geneva Call and the groups that have undertaken to accept key obligations, see http://www.genevacall.org/home.htm.
60. See also Soliman Santos, 'A critical reflection on the Geneva Call instrument and approach to engaging armed groups on humanitarian reforms: a southern perspective', at http://www.armedgroups.org/index.php?opdon= coutenttask=viewid=31;
61. Chandra Lekha Sriram, 'Achieving accountability for non-state armed groups-use of domestic mechanisms for international crimes', at http://www.armedgroups.org/index.php?option=contenttask=viewid=43, all last accessed 7 April 2006.
62. While not driven by policy-oriented jurisprudence per se, the United Nations has developed a policy framework for dealing with post-atrocity societies that at least reflects the insights of such an approach. See Rule of law and transitional justice in conflict ana post-conflict societies: report of the Secretary-General, UN Doc. 5/2004/616, 23 Aug. 2004.
63. Siegfried Wiessner and Andrew R. Willard, 'Policy-oriented jurisprudence arid human rights abuses in internal conflict: towards a world public order of human dignity', American Journal of International Law 93: 2, April 1999, p. 317.
64. Wiessner and Willard, 'Policy-oriented jurisprudence', p. 318.
65. This is a common criticism of cases brought through the exercise of universal jurisdiction, but also, potentially, of some cases brought to the International Criminal Court. See Madeleine Morris, 'International humanitarian law: state collusion and the conundrum of jurisdiction', in Biersteker et al., eds, International law and international relations
66. and 'The disturbing democratic deficit of the International Criminal Court', Finnish Yearbook of International Law, 12, 2001.
67. The literature here is vast. I offer just two examples: Anthony D'Amato, The relation of the individual to the state in the era of human rights', Texas International Law Journal 24: 1, 1989, pp. 1-12;
68. Richard Falk, Human rights and state sovereignty (New York; Holmes & Meier, 1981).
69. Orentlicher, 'Whose justice?'.