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Between Coordination and Constitution: International Law as a German Discipline

2011; Volume: 15; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.7227/r.15.1.4

2308-0914

Martti Koskenniemi,

International Law and Human Rights

I want to argue here not only that there is a specifically "German" heritage to international law but that in view of its history and its problems, international law is a "German discipline" in a way that it cannot be said to be "French", "British" or indeed an "American" discipline.Most people accept that international law is a European political vocabulary.Its historical links with European diplomacy and the early modern European states-system, its role in supporting and directing colonization, and the basis of its conceptual apparatus in Roman Law, among others, make it an aspect of European political culture.Its claim to universality is no different from the claim of universality made by other aspects of European life -shaking hands when meeting, for example.But I want to argue that when focus is on the contexts where its principal doctrines have emerged, international law will appear to give articulation to a series of specifically German experiences and pursuits.Moreover, it seems to do this many times over, that over again it is German lawyers and political thinkers -I mean "German" widely, including Swiss and Austrian Germanspeakers -have given international problems a legal coloration and developed it with the greatest sense of urgency and technical skill.We could put this the other way around: if we were to subtract from international law the contribution by all English, French or American lawyers, we would still have a body of rules and institutions that we