The preamble to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted on 10 December 1948 emphasises that ‘recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world’. While there is widespread acceptance of the importance of human rights in the international structure, there is considerable confusion as to their precise nature and role in international law. The question of what is meant by a ‘right’ is itself controversial and the subject of intense jurisprudential debate. Some ‘rights’, for example, are intended as immediately enforceable binding commitments, others merely as specifying a possible future pattern of behaviour. The problem of enforcement and sanctions with regard to human rights in international law is another issue which can affect the characterisation of the phenomenon. There are writers who regard the high incidence of non-compliance with human rights norms as evidence of state practice that argues against the existence of a structure of human rights principles in international law. Although sight must not be lost of violations of human rights laws, such an approach is not only academically incorrect, but also profoundly negative. The concept of human rights is closely allied with ethics and morality. Those rights that reflect the values of a community will be those with the most chance of successful implementation. Positive rights may be taken to include those rights enshrined within a legal system, whether or not reflective of moral considerations, whereas a moral right is not necessarily enforceable by law. One may easily discover positive rights. Deducing or inferring moral rights is another matter entirely and will depend upon the perception of the person seeking the existence of a particular right.

The utility of a norm is central to its adoption and this utility is generative of a norm’s adherents: the ‘norm circle’. Regional organisations provide excellent arenas to witness normative contestation between norm circles, as well as to understand how a ‘successful’ norm is selected. Within a regional organisation, specific domain rules apply, and these provide the criteria for the successful passage of a normative proposal. The three broad criteria suggested are the control of the initiative, the mastery of existing shared norms, and ‘metis’, the ability to identify opportunities for influence and expand the norm circle. The chapter ends with a review of suitable cases in the OAU/AU and ASEAN.

The impetus to create a world court for the international community developed as a result of the atmosphere engendered by The Hague Conferences of 1897 and 1907. The establishment of the Permanent Court of Arbitration, although neither permanent nor, in fact, a court, marked an important step forward in the consolidation of an international legal system. However, no lasting concrete steps were taken until after the conclusion of the First World War. The Covenant of the League of Nations called for the formulation of proposals for the creation of a world court and in 1920 the Permanent Court of International Justice (PCIJ) was created. It stimulated efforts to develop international arbitral mechanisms. Together with arbitration, the Permanent Court was intended to provide a reasonably comprehensive system serving the international community. It was intended as a way to prevent outbreaks of violence by enabling easily accessible methods of dispute settlement in the context of a legal and organisational framework to be made available.

Commentators have heralded the widespread agreement among states to permit the monitoring and enforcement of trade rules through third-party dispute settlement as a major milestone not just in the development of international trade law but in the development of international law more generally. The creation of multilateral rules on trade was itself an achievement but the compliance methodology that sought to ensure that states would uphold their commitments was an even greater triumph for a rule-based international system. In light of this accomplishment by governments to agree to such terms, much of the literature of the 1990s praised the institutionalization of trade law with these mechanisms incorporated and subsequent developments in international trade dispute settlement design (Jackson 1997; Schott 1994; Steger and Hainsworth 1998; Thomas and Meyer 1997). At the forefront of these developments was the dispute settlement mechanism of the World Trade Organization (WTO). Scholars viewed the WTO as a model not only in the substance of its foundational agreements, but also in its institutions with committees for dialogue among members and a dispute settlement mechanism premised on democratic norms and the rule of law (Alford 2013; Hamilton and Rochwerger 2005; Katz 2016; Manak 2019; Sarooshi 2014).

Bartolus (or Bartolo in the vernacular) was born in either 1313 or 1314, in a village near the small town of Sassoferrato, in the March of Ancona – a territory forming part of the Papal States. He first studied law at the University of Perugia, where his most notable teacher was Cinus da Pistoia, a founding figure of the so-called School of Commentators.1 He then obtained his doctorate from Bologna in 1334, where his teachers included Oldradus da Ponte, Jacobus Buttrigarius, and Ranierus de Forlivio. After a brief judicial career in Todi and possibly Pisa, Bartolus begun teaching at Pisa in 1339 and finally joined the law faculty of Perugia in either 1342 or 1343 until his death in 1357.2 His students there included the other great Commentator Baldus de Ubaldis (1327–1400).

In any legal system, certain entities, whether they be individuals or companies, will be regarded as possessing rights and duties enforceable at law. Thus, an individual may prosecute or be prosecuted for assault and a company can sue for breach of contract. They are able to do this because the law recognises them as ‘legal persons’ possessing the capacity to have and to maintain certain rights, and being subject to perform specific duties. Just which persons will be entitled to what rights in what circumstances will depend upon the scope and character of the law. But it is the function of the law to apportion such rights and duties to such entities as it sees fit. Legal personality is crucial. Without it institutions and groups cannot operate, for they need to be able to maintain and enforce claims. In municipal law individuals, limited companies and public corporations are recognised as each possessing a distinct legal personality, the terms of which are circumscribed by the relevant legislation. It is the law which will determine the scope and nature of personality. Personality involves the examination of certain concepts within the law such as status, capacity and competence, as well as the nature and extent of particular rights and duties. The status of a particular entity may well be determinative of certain powers and obligations, while capacity will link together the status of a person with particular rights and duties. The whole process operates within the confines of the relevant legal system, which circumscribes personality, its nature and definition. This is especially true in international law. A particular view adopted of the system will invariably reflect upon the question of the identity and nature of international legal persons.

In 1949, the French Professor Henri Batiffol published the first edition of a treatise on private international law that was to have a long history.1

In the historical consciousness of private international lawyers, Bartolus is one of us – an illustrious ancestor. This is almost regardless of what present-day relevance his contribution is perceived to have. Occasionally, however, it has been argued that what Bartolus was doing in this text was an exercise not in the conflict of laws properly speaking, but in statutory interpretation or in the modernization of a superior body of law.

To write the intellectual history of a doctrinal field in a given period is to address a double-edged question. A period is defined by a minimum of internal coherence, as well as by its “external” differentiation from the adjacent periods. At the same time, these unifying characteristics coexist with internal divergences. The paradigm of an epoch is shaped by these defining ideas and the tensions generated, which over time give rise to a different environment and inspire new paradigms. Such a history is therefore a balancing exercise between concord and dissonance, our historical understanding inevitably coloured by the aspirations, sensibilities and tensions of subequent epochs.

The contest to determine exactly what ‘protection’ entailed continued in two phases as they set up a human rights body (the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights, AICHR) and a human rights declaration. In the most contested phase of defining what human rights protection meant in ASEAN, only a compromise that satisfied neither norm circle was possible. Neither circle could sufficiently wield their diplomatic competencies to influence the results decisively, with the failure to reach consensus looming over both circles. This was reflected in the existence of political declarations alongside the formal terms of reference and human rights declaration that sought to safeguard the compromises within each document.

The idea of the Nordic countries as benevolent international actors is well entrenched, exerts affective hold, and has recently been incorporated into official regional branding practices. This chapter considers how and why this “peace brand” and conception of the Nordics as quintessential “good states” appears to stick, both domestically and internationally, even though claims about such Nordic exceptionalism are increasingly contested. It argues that for insiders the idea of the Nordic “good state” has become part of a fantasized ideal that appeals to desires for self-esteem and status while bolstering feelings of ontological security and international agency. In contrast, it is argued that, for outsiders, the Nordic “good state” often appears as a useful and instrumentalized ideal to be utilized domestically as part of the politics of (de)legitimation, in ways often only tangentially connected to the Nordics themselves.