What Is International Law?

The concept of international Law

When it comes to understanding the concept of “International Law”, three essential questions arise: “what is international law?” “what is international law for”?, and “is international law really law”?

The purpose of this essay is to analyze different perceptions on the answers for this question in order to better understand or grasp the concept ofinternational law. For this purpose, the essay is divided in 4 main parts. The first part concentrates on analyzing what is international law, based on the reasoning of two experts: Stephen C Neff and Martti Koskenniemi. The second part focuses on what is International Law for. This will include an analysis on the perspective given by Martti Koskenniemi as well as the United Nations. The third segment willcenter on the debate that revolves on the question “is international law really law?”. For this segment there will be an analysis of H. Harts perspective. The fourth and last segment will serve as a conclusion and a final analysis that centers on which of this questions is considered more engaging and therefore should predominate.

What is International Law?

According to Stephen C Neff,there is not one definite answer to this question. In his article A history of International Law he states that the definition of International law lays within its history ant its development throughout the years. Neff believes that throughout the history of mankind the definition of international law has depended on the political, social, economical ad cultural circumstances of each period andtherefore it is constantly and infinitely changing. To support this idea he associates different definitions of International Law with different time periods throughout history. According to this author, the definition of International Law as “the ensemble of methods or devices which give an element of predictability to international relations” is directly related to Ancient Times (KOSKENNIEMI, p-4).If International Law is defined as a comprehensive code of conduct that can be applied to all nations, it is based on ideologies from the Middle Ages. If it is defined as a “set of substantive principles applying uniquely to States”, it comes from the seventeenth century (KOSKENNIEMI, p-4). If it is understood as the combination of all the nations of the world as a single community under aunique law, it comes from the nineteenth century. If, lastly, international law is considered as “the enactments and judicial decisions of a world government”, it is the definition perceived in the twentieth first century (aka: us). The importance of all of these notions, according to Neff, is to understand that international law is perceived differently by different people at different times. It iscrucial to understand that this doesn’t mean, that one definition is better than another one; each definition is in principle as valid as the others. From this we can synthesize that according to Neff, to understand what is International Law, one has to look at the different perspectives that have surged throughout history, for international law is composed of all the different historicalperspectives mentioned earlier.

Martti Koskenniem, in the other hand believes the international law we know of today is completely based on European ideologies, philosophies, ideals, purposes and reasoning: it is an expansion of European civilization across the world. Also, he believes that there are two conceptions of International Law. The ideal conception is based on the idea of creating aninternational community, based and conformed by universal internal principles and institutions. The realist conception is based on the idea that international law is based on state power and geopolitics. According to him, neither one can survive without the other. It is crucial to take into account that he firmly believes both conceptions are managed by the central powers, especially Europe, and therefore...