Fault Lines of International Legitimacy

This book examines the features and functions of international legitimacy and how these change over time.

Hilary Charlesworth (Edited by), Jean-Marc Coicaud (Edited by)

9780521764469, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 25 February 2010

418 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.7 cm, 0.684 kg

“Legitimacy is unstable terrain. Fault lines mark the movement of its legal, normative and political tectonic plates: this results in release of pressure, some beneficial adjustment, and periodic shocks. It is this terrain – human rights, military intervention, peacekeeping, and international administration – that is mapped by a distinguished group of analysts. They have given us a very valuable addition to the growing literature on international legitimacy.”
--Ian Clark, ESRC Professorial Fellow and E H Carr Professor, Department of International Politics, Aberystwyth University

Fault Lines of International Legitimacy deals with the following questions: What are the features and functions of legitimacy in the international realm? How does international legitimacy, as exemplified in particular by multilateral norms, organizations, and policies, change over time? What role does the international distribution of power and its evolution have in the establishment and transformation of legitimacy paradigms? To what extent do democratic values account for the growing importance of legitimacy and the increasing difficulty of achieving it at the international and the national level? One of the central messages of the book is that, although the search for international legitimacy is an elusive endeavor, there is no alternative to it if we want to respond to the intertwined demands of justice and security and make them an integral and strategic part of international relations.

Acknowledgments
Contributors
Introduction Jean-Marc Coicard
Part I. From the History and Structure of International Legitimacy to Fault Lines in Contemporary International Politics: 1. Legitimacy, across borders and over time Jean-Marc Coicard
2. Deconstructing international legitimacy Jean-Marc Coicard
3. The evolution of international order and fault lines of international legitimacy Jean-Marc Coicard
4. Intervention in a 'divided world': axes of legitimacy Nathaniel Berman
5. From Berlin to Bonn to Baghdad: a space for infinite justice Vasuki Nesiah
Part II. The UN Security Council: Expression, Venue, and Promoter of International Legitimacy?: 6. Legal deliberation and argumentation in international decision making Ian Johnstone
7. The UN Security Council, regional arrangements, and peacekeeping operations Nishkala Suntharalingam
8. The Security Council's alliance of gender legitimacy: the symbolic capital of Resolution 1325 Dianne Otto
Part III. Legitimacy of International Interventions and Hierarchy of International Rights: 9. Cosmopolitan militaries and cosmopolitan force Lorraine Elliott
10. Sovereignty, rights, and armed intervention: a dialectical perspective B. S. Chimni
Part IV. In Search of New Forms of International Legitimacy: Between Power and Principles: 11. Determining how the legitimacy of intervention is discussed: a case study of international territorial administration Ralph Wilde
12. The legitimacy of economic sanctions: an analysis of humanitarian exemptions of sanctions regimes and the right to minimum sustenance Jun Matsukuma
Conclusion: the legitimacies of international law Hilary Charlesworth
Index.

Subject Areas: Public international law [LBB], International relations [JPS]