| "Weisburd's
work is an important contribution to our understanding of international
law and politics. His case studies alone are a worthwhile contribution,
and his categorization of when interstate force will be approved,
sanctioned, or acquiesced in will aid both diplomats and scholars."-Perspectives
in Political Science
"This is an outstanding example of interdisciplinary scholarship
between international law and political science. Professor Weisburd
cuts through the thicket of international legal rhetoric while accepting
the reality of customary international law. The result is a significant
contribution to the study of post-World War II international conflicts."-
Anthony D'Amato, Northwestern University
This book is among the few to develop in detail the proposition
that international law on the subject of interstate force is better
derived from practice than from treaties. Mark Weisburd assembles
here a broad body of evidence to support practice-based rules of
law on the subject of force.
Analyses of a particular use of force by a state against another
state generally begin with the language of the Charter of the United
Nations. This approach is seriously flawed, argues Weisburd. States
do not, in fact, behave as the Charter requires. If the legal rule
regulating the use of force is the rule of the Charter, then law
is nearly irrelevant to the interstate use of force. However, treaties
like the Charter are not the only source of public international
law. Customary law, too, is binding on states. If state behavior
can be shown to conform generally to what amount to tacit rules
on the use of force, and if states generally enforce such rules
against other states, then the resulting pattern of practice strongly
supports the argument that the use of force is affected by law at
a very practical level.
This work aims to demonstrate that such patterns exist and to explain
their content. Weisburd discusses over one hundred interstate conflicts
that took place from 1945 through 1991. He focuses on the behavior
of the states using force and on the reaction of third parties to
the use of force. He concentrates upon state practice rather than
upon treaty law and does not assume a priori that any particular
policy goal can be attributed to the international legal system,
proceeding instead on the assumption that the system's goals can
be determined only by examining the workings of the system. |
|
|
