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International Law: Torn between Coexistence, Cooperation and Globalization
General Conclusions
Pierre-Marie Dupuy1
Full text available: PDF format *
Abstract
A comparison of the major trends of international law during the 1960s and the present time shows the consolidation in positive international law of the basic principles laid down in the UN Charter. There are nevertheless some very substantial differences between the time when the `international community' placed greatest emphasis on the `common heritage of mankind' and the time of globalization, the second posing new challenges to the sovereign state. It remains that the prohibition of force as set down in the Charter establishes the historical development of international law in the perspective of the specific categorical imperative defined by Kant's project of `perpetual peace'. In this respect, it has become possible since 1945 to look at the development of international law from the viewpoint of progress.
Last night, undoubtedly because I was feeling agitated about having to present the concluding remarks at a symposium where the discussion had been as substantial as it was varied, I had a dream. Wolfgang Friedmann had come back to join us in our work. He was hoping to compare the period during which he had written The Changing Structure of International Law2 with ours, in an attempt to derive some useful lessons. By way of conclusion, then, I will recount the dream conversation that took place between Friedmann and myself. The relative density of our discussion is due not so much to my own ideas as to the wealth of knowledge and insight brought by each of the participants to the colloquium, which I sought to report as well as I could to the illustrious guest of my dream.
So that this tale might not have the opposite effect of making readers sleepy, I have sought retrospectively to create some order out of that disturbed night's discussion. I have accordingly structured it into six points.
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1 University of Paris (Panthéon-Assas, Paris 2), Director of
the Institut des hautes études internationales de Paris, Member
of the EJIL Editorial Board. Translated by Iain L. Fraser.
2 The Changing Structure of International Law
(1964).
© 1990-2004 European Journal of International Law
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Wednesday, November 19, 2003 02:18AM