Ethics and Authority in International Law

Alfred Rubin provides a powerful account of positivism and international law in the modern world.

Alfred P. Rubin (Author)

9780521582025, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 13 July 1997

256 pages
23.5 x 15.8 x 2.1 cm, 0.573 kg

'… a book that demands active engagement by the reader. The reinstatement of authority as a central concern is valuable, representing a Benthamite turn in contemporary theory of international law by insisting that a clear distinction should be drawn between law as it is and law as it ought to be, thus 'differentiating moral indignation from legal argumentation''. The American Journal of International Law

The specialized vocabularies of lawyers, ethicists, and political scientists obscure the roots of many real disagreements. In this book, the distinguished American international lawyer Alfred Rubin provides a penetrating account of where these roots lie, and argues powerfully that disagreements which have existed for 3,000 years are unlikely to be resolved soon. Attempts to make 'war crimes' or 'terrorism' criminal under international law seem doomed to fail for the same reasons that attempts failed in the early nineteenth century to make piracy, war crimes, and the international traffic in slaves criminal under the law of nations. And for the same reasons, Professor Rubin argues, it is unlikely that an international criminal court can be instituted today to enforce ethicists' versions of 'international law'.

Preface
Acknowledgements
List of abbreviations
Table of cases
Table of statutes
Table of treaties
1. Introduction
2. The international legal order
3. Theory and practice come together
4. Putting it together
5. Implications for today
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: International law [LB]