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The Wonderful Artificialityof States

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2017

Martti Koskenniemi
Martti Koskenniemi*
Affiliation:
Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland
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Abstract

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Type
Theoretical Perspectives on the Transformation of Sovereignty
Information
Proceedings of the ASIL Annual Meeting , Volume 88 , 1994 , pp. 22 - 29
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of International Law 1994 

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References

1 Engels, Friedrich, Anti-Duhring, in Karl Marx/Friedrich Engels, Collected Works (Vol. 25) 385 (1975) (emphasis added)Google Scholar. Cf. Lenin, V. I., The State And Revolution (Robert Service trans., 1992), at 85-92 Google Scholar.

2 Cf. Evan Luard, The Globalization Of Politics (1990); Poggi, Gianfraco, The State. Its Development, Nature and Prospects (1990) pp. 177-183 Google Scholar. For a recent recapitulation of the technological, environmental, managerial and securty-related challenges to a state-based international law, cf. Grossman, Claudio & Bardlow, David W., Are We Being Propelled towards a People-centered Transnational Legal Order? , 9 Am. U. J. Int’L L. & Pol’y 1, 11-25 (1993) and the rest of the essays in that issueGoogle Scholar.

3 On the notion of “cooperative security,” ’ cf. Gareth Evans, Cooperating for Peace. The Global Agenda in the 1990s and Beyond (1993).

4 The sociological thesis may refer to the extreme differences between states as regards their capacity to act, internally or internationally, on an autonomous basis. The demonstration that legal statehood seems independent of any objective sociological criterion (wealth, power, size, population) makes a mockery of arguments that hold statehood as basic for the international order. Statehood is merely a historical accident—a product of particular constellation of power and interest. That Vanuatu is a state and Taiwan is not is inexplicable by any sociologically valid criterion.

5 Cf. Tesón, Fernando R., The Kantian Theory of International Law , 92 Colum. L. R. 54 (1992) and, generally, Philip Allott, Eunomia. A New Order For A New World (1991)Google Scholar.

6 Cf, e.g., Falk, Richard, Kim, S., & Mendlovitz, S., Toward A Just World Order. Vol. I Studies On A Just World Order 55 (1982)Google Scholar.

7 Cf. Island of Palmas case, II UNRIAA, 839, 843-46; Land, Island & Maritime Frontier Dispute, 1992 ICJ Rep. 398.

8 UN Charter, Art. 4. Cf. European Community Declaration of 16 December 1991 on the Guidelines for the Recognition of New States in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, 31 ILM 1485 (1992). Regarding equitable principles as a criterion for rights over sea territory, see Libya-Tunisia Continental Shelf case, 1982 ICJ REP. 58.

9 Cf. Koskenniemi, Martti & Lehto, Maria, La succession d’Etats dans I’Ex-URSS, en ce qui concerne particulierement les relations avec la Finland , XXXVIII AFDI 190-98 (1992)Google Scholar.

10 South West Africa case, 1966 ICJ Rep. 48.

11 Cf. Burkina Faso-Mali Boundary case, 1986 ICJ REP. 564; Conference on Yugoslavia, Arbitration Commission, Opinion No. 3, 31 ILM 1499 (1992).

12 Cf. Althusser, Louis, Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses, in Essays On Ideology 1 (1984)Google Scholar.

13 “Recognizing that political and economic changes, including in particular a growing reliance on market principles, show the need to re-evaluate some aspects of the Area and its resources,” Draft Resolution for Adoption by the General Assembly, Preamble, in Draft Resolution and Draft Agreement relating to the Implementation of Part XI of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, 15 April 1994 (provisional outcome of the UN Secretary-General’s consultations on Part XI of the UNCLOS).

14 Cf. Satire, William, LOST at Sea (criticism of the UN Law of the Sea Treaty) N. Y. TIMES, March 31, 1994, at A21 Google Scholar; cf. also Wälde, Thomas, A Requiem for the New International Economic Order (paper given at the Doha Conference on International Legal Issues Arising under the United Nations Decade of International Law, Qatar, March 1994) (forthcoming 1994)Google Scholar.

15 See, e.g., Bahro, Rudolf, The Alternative In Eastern Europe 83-92, 235-50 (1977)Google Scholar.

16 See Davidson, Basil, The Black Man’S Burden. Africa And The Nation-State (1992)Google Scholar.

17 See Schreuer, Christoph, The Waning of the Sovereign State: Toward a New Paradigm of International Law? 4 Eur. J. Int’L. L . 447 (1993)Google Scholar. For a philosophically based argument for the (partial) replacement of states by “cross-national associations,” see Thompson, Janna, Justice And World Order. A Philosophical Inquiry 168 et seq., 182-87 (1992)Google Scholar. For a similar argument from a Marxist perspective, see Callmocos, Alex, The Revenge Of History. Marxism And The East European Revolutions 127 (1991)Google Scholar.

18 For the argument about the internal fragmentation of the unitary state, see Poggi, , supra note 2, at 183-89Google Scholar; Eriksson, Lars D., The Disintegration of the Nation-State , Rechtstheorie, Beiheft 15, Law, Justice, And The State 242 (1993)Google Scholar.

19 See, e.g., Human Rights Committee, General Comment No. 23(50) (Art. 27), CCPR/C/21/Rev.l/ Add 5 (April 19, 1994). Article 27 of the Convention on Civil and Political Rights requires, inter alia, “positive measures by States … to protect the identity of a minority and the rights of its members to enjoy and develop their culture and language and to practice their religion in community with the other members of the group” (¶6.2). See also Clech Lâ, Maivân, Making Room for Peoples at the United Nations: Thoughts Provoked by Indigenous Claims to Self-Determination , 25 Cornell Int’l L.J. 603, 611-22 (1992)Google Scholar.

20 Charlesworth, Hilary, Chinkin, Christine & Wright, Shelley, Feminist Approaches to International Law , 85 AJIL 613, 621,634 (1991)Google Scholar. The public-private distinction “is an ideological construct rationalizing the exclusion of women from the sources of power” (p. 629). See also Romany, Celina, Women as Aliens; A Feminist Critique of the Public/Private Distinction in International Human Rights Law, 6 Harv. Hum. Rts. J. 87, 97 et seq. (1993)Google Scholar.

21 See Roberto Mangabeira Unger, Social Theory. Its Situation And Its Task 80 et seq. (1987).

22 Koskenniemi, Martti, xysNational Self-Determination Today. Problems of Legal Theory and Practice, 43 ICLQ 241, 260-64 (1994)Google Scholar.

23 Theodor W. Adorno, The Jargon Of Authenticity (1973).

24 Kelsen, Hans, Der Soziologische Und Der Juristische Staatsbegriff. Kritische Untersuchung Des Verhaltnisses Von Staat Und Recht (1928)Google Scholar.

25 For, says Kelsen, in Les rapports de systime entre le droit interne et le droit international public , 14 R.C.A.D.I 246 (1926-IV)Google Scholar, the duality of state and law is merely one of many examples of the doubling (dedoublement) of the objects of human cognizance. In fact, states are interpretative schemes. One gives it a reality in many forms: but the phenomenon is indeed one (like God and Nature—the former being the personification, in the form of commands, of the latter).

26 See Aristotle, , The Politics, (T. A. Sinclair trans., 1992), esp. at 52 et seqGoogle Scholar.

27 Perhaps also of the idea of reason as the unifying justification of political community; see POGGI, , supra note 2, at 185-87Google Scholar.