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12 - Comments on chapters 10 and 11

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 July 2009

Rainer Hofmann
Affiliation:
Director of the Walther-Schücking-Institute for International Law Kiel University; President of the Advisory Committee Council of Europe Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities
Andrew Hurrell
Affiliation:
University Lecturer International Relations; Fellow Nuffield College, Oxford
Rüdiger Wolfrum
Affiliation:
Director of the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and Public International Law and Professor of Law University of Heidelberg
Michael Byers
Affiliation:
Duke University, North Carolina
Georg Nolte
Affiliation:
Georg-August-Universität, Göttingen, Germany
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Summary

Rainer Hofmann

The bipolar world – in which the United States and the Soviet Union were the two superpowers – belongs to the past. At present, there is but one hegemon in international politics, the United States. What impact might this fact have on international law or, more precisely, on customary international law?

It was in 1973 that, as a student, I had my first encounter with public international law. Among the things I still remember from that course is that customary law – the creation and existence of customary law – depended on a universal and longstanding practice of States and – as an additional precondition – that this state practice reflected a universal opinio juris sive necessitatis. The underlying rationale of these two conditions was the principle of sovereign equality among States. In addition, we were taught that the fundamental aim, the basic justification of this concept of customary law, was but a reflection of what was – or should be considered as – the final aim of law as such, or of any legal system, namely the protection of the “weak” against the brute force of the “strong.” In other words: The task of international law consisted, inter alia, in protecting the interests and rights of the less powerful State against the military and other forces of the more powerful State.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2003

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  • Comments on chapters 10 and 11
    • By Rainer Hofmann, Director of the Walther-Schücking-Institute for International Law Kiel University; President of the Advisory Committee Council of Europe Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, Andrew Hurrell, University Lecturer International Relations; Fellow Nuffield College, Oxford, Rüdiger Wolfrum, Director of the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and Public International Law and Professor of Law University of Heidelberg
  • Edited by Michael Byers, Duke University, North Carolina, Georg Nolte, Georg-August-Universität, Göttingen, Germany
  • Book: United States Hegemony and the Foundations of International Law
  • Online publication: 13 July 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511494154.014
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  • Comments on chapters 10 and 11
    • By Rainer Hofmann, Director of the Walther-Schücking-Institute for International Law Kiel University; President of the Advisory Committee Council of Europe Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, Andrew Hurrell, University Lecturer International Relations; Fellow Nuffield College, Oxford, Rüdiger Wolfrum, Director of the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and Public International Law and Professor of Law University of Heidelberg
  • Edited by Michael Byers, Duke University, North Carolina, Georg Nolte, Georg-August-Universität, Göttingen, Germany
  • Book: United States Hegemony and the Foundations of International Law
  • Online publication: 13 July 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511494154.014
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Comments on chapters 10 and 11
    • By Rainer Hofmann, Director of the Walther-Schücking-Institute for International Law Kiel University; President of the Advisory Committee Council of Europe Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, Andrew Hurrell, University Lecturer International Relations; Fellow Nuffield College, Oxford, Rüdiger Wolfrum, Director of the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and Public International Law and Professor of Law University of Heidelberg
  • Edited by Michael Byers, Duke University, North Carolina, Georg Nolte, Georg-August-Universität, Göttingen, Germany
  • Book: United States Hegemony and the Foundations of International Law
  • Online publication: 13 July 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511494154.014
Available formats
×