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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by GUMPLLISESSIKALA0 (talk | contribs) at 04:58, 22 January 2023 (→INTERNATIONAL LAW AND INTERNATIONAL NORMS: new section). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Wikipedia Day Awards

Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 19:36, 30 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:WikiProject User Page Help/Content Advice/Other#Status changer

I'm following the instructions, and pasting Topaz's monobook.js page onto mine, but after purging my cache, nothing happens! There is no button after log out, and I don't understand what the problem is. Does anyone have this installed, so they can help me? Thanks. | AndonicO Talk | Sign Here 17:56, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think the best solution would be for you to ask Topaz (talk • contribs). Cheers! SD31415 (SIGN HERE) 22:49, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, please comment here. Thanks: --Sadi Carnot 19:02, 5 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Templates

Sorry if this has already been discussed, but perhaps someone could design an easily customisable template for new users? I certainly know I could use one! Something like where we can just enter our names/interests etc., it would give people a starting block from which to develop their pages. Elliot2005 17:24, 4 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Template:User infobox seems to be the template for you. Happy editing! — S.D. 20:16, 4 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Template I created

I created a template for wrapping user pages, but I just joined the project, and I'm not to sure where to put it, (or whether or not to place it here at all) so if anyone wants to put a link to it, the two templates (yes, two) are located here (user page) and here (user talk page). —Andrew Hampe Talk 20:14, 22 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

...

I'm making my last improvements on my userpage. On the bottom of the page, there are two collapable bars which, when opened, reveals my other userboxes. The problem is that some of the userboxes don't have their rightful images on them, nor there is a link to the image (for example: compare {{User Vietnamese}} to how it is on my userpage). Is these a way to fix this, or is it just like that? It can be edited HERE. MITB LS 02:51, 26 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

How can I make a cool page

I just registered and I want help on designing my own page. Is their anyone here who can help me.--Miss Pussy Galore 19:34, 7 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah sure. How do you want your page to look? The Chronic 07:58, 16 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm a music minister. I want my page design to be like Tye Tribbett's. Thanks. PHILIPAGE (talk) 06:27, 6 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

List all userpage gadgets

How about making a list of all available userpage 'gadget'-templates, like this nice clock and other calandar templates, Template:Vandalism information, featured content, signpost, Tip of the day... wiki-ads, Motto of the day etc. etc. To make it more easy for new users to choose and add these kind of things to their userpages.Freestyle 16:26, 22 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Merge

Should Wikipedia:WikiProject User Page Help/Help Desk and Wikipedia:WikiProject User Page Help/Help Requests be merged? The Help Desk gets 1 to 2 edits a month and only I and another user watch it on a regular basis. MBisanz talk 04:07, 23 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. Merge. The Transhumanist 22:54, 31 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You may be interested...

Hello all,

Just thought i'd let you know about this, and some changes that have been proposed.

Basically, it says that we should only have one body, not several as we have at the moment, that deals with all the things found in that one, and all the rest.

Thanks,

BG7even 12:59, 30 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hoorah!

Great, a restored page that is needed for any user willing to update their page! LB22 (talk to me!)Email me! 19:26, 28 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Merge

This content should probably be merged into Wikipedia:WikiProject User Page Help. — Κaiba 23:41, 7 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree. The Transhumanist 17:46, 15 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I also disagree. Masterpiece2000 (talk) 03:05, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thankyou!

Thanks very much for this resource. I've just finished updating my userpage using the information here and I'm very happy with the result! Gazimoff WriteRead 09:52, 23 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Notification of simplification/rationalisation of User Page projects

You may be interested...

Hello all,

Just thought i'd let you know about this, and some changes that have been proposed.

Basically, it says that we should only have one body, not several as we have at the moment, that deals with all the things found in that one, and all the rest.

Thanks,

BG7even 13:00, 30 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Categorization

Why in the world is no category assigned to the page?!! --77.4.109.198 (talk) 02:10, 8 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Naming conventions (capitalization)

I have just moved a bunch of subpages in here to fix capitalization mistakes. -- IRP ☎ 20:41, 29 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Userboxes!

My two custom userboxes on my userpage go off to the right. How do I fix that? Shannon1talk contribs 22:53, 7 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Seems ok to me. Ahtough I'm not expecting a response, what web browser are you using? No one responded to your question mostly because this page disscusses the project, not any userpage problems-for that go to the Help or FAQ sections. ResMar 04:18, 4 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Doesn't work in either Safari, Internet Explorer or Firefox. I use a Mac. Shannontalk contribs sign!:) 02:00, 25 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The User Page Design Center has quite a few pages, and I propose a navigation bar (below) so that it is easy to progress through the center and change pages without having to go back to the menu:

Introduction About you Navigation aids Metadata Your monobook.js page Hall of Fame Style Menus & subpages Art, Decor, etc. Help and collaboration

Liverpoolfan567 (talk) 14:11, 23 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

As no-one has replied, I will go ahead. Liverpoolfan567 (talk) 15:19, 16 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Nice Job! Majestic PyreMy Speech Bubble 22:43, 13 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Review page

I think this page should get going again, Wikipedia:User page design center/User page Hall of Fame/Review. I was definetly a good page and useful. I would be happy to help out. Mr.Kennedy1 talk guestbook 09:57, 5 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Are there any objections to my making the Icons on the home page link to the pages they are listed as? Majestic PyreMy Speech Bubble 22:45, 13 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

UPDC proposal; fold

See Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)#Fold_Wikipedia:User_page_design_center.2FHelp_and_collaboration.2FHelp_requests. IRWolfie- (talk) 13:54, 6 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Category:UPDC participants

Category:UPDC participants, which is within the scope of this WikiProject, has been nominated for renaming. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the Categories for discussion page. Thank you. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 11:40, 10 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Want a Custom Menu?

If you want a custom menu, please contact me on my Request part of my group of personal pages! You will get to choose what categories(like contributions, talk page, user page..ect.)icons for the categories, and wether or not you want a border around it! Click my name to get started, and go to request, using my menu.SpeedyEditing hit_me_up 23:36, 25 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Suggested code for UPDC Participants userbox

Hi!! I just wanna request a code for UPDC Team Members' userbox. If you agree with this, please write to your product userbox. ZappyLongNose (talk) 00:39, 10 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Code Result
{{Template:User page design center member}}
This user made use of the
User page design guide
to improve their user page.
 Usage

Need to add my page

I have a sufficient knowledge about pigeons care and pigeons treatement and high flying formulas as well as teaching knowledge for society. استاد ملک محمد نوید کوکا کولا والے (talk) 07:04, 19 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

INTERNATIONAL LAW AND INTERNATIONAL NORMS

INTERNATIONAL LAW AND INTERNATIONAL NORMS 

International Jurisprudence and the Third World Robert H. Jackson practice and theory Since the end of World War II we have been witnessing what in retrospect looks more and more like a revolutionary period of international history when sovereign statehood – the constitutive principle of international society – is subjected to major change. It is perhaps most evident in the remarkable role of the United Nations in fostering new sovereignties around the world. In this paper I argue that African states are juridical artifacts of a highly accommodating regime of international law and politics which is an expression of a twentieth-century anticolonial ideology of self-determination. This civil regime has important implications for international theory and particularly the renewed interest in sovereignty.1 The discourse characteristic of sovereignty is jurisprudential rather than sociological: the language of rules rather than roles, prescribed norms instead of observed regularities. The study of sovereignty therefore 1 See, for example, Stephen D. Krasner, ed., International Regimes (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1983), particularly the editor’s introductory and concluding chapters, and John Gerard Ruggie, ‘‘Continuity and Transformation in the World Polity,’’ in Robert O. Keohane, ed., Neorealism and Its Critics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986), pp. 130–57. A major new study which has been very influential in my own thinking is Alan James, Sovereign Statehood: The Basis of International Society (London: Allen & Unwin, 1986). An earlier version of this paper was presented at a panel convened by James Mayall on ‘‘The Crisis of the State and International Relations Theory’’ at the British International Studies Association Annual Conference, University of Reading, 15–17 December 1986. am grateful to Mark Zacher, Stephen Krasner, and two anonymous reviewers for helpful suggestions and the Donner Canadian Foundation for financial support. 205 involves us in legal theory, international law, and international institutions in the broadest meaning of these terms: what elsewhere I call the ‘‘civil science’’ approach to the study of politics.2 By ‘‘neoclassical international theory’’ I refer to what Hedley Bull describes as ‘‘theorizing that derives from philosophy, history, and law’’ or what Martin Wight calls ‘‘a tradition of speculation about relations between states’’: the companion of ‘‘political theory.’’3 The constitutional tradition generally tends to assume, with Grotius, Burke, and Oakeshott as against Machiavelli, Kant, and Marx, that theory by and large is the child and not the parent of practice in political life. In Hegel’s famous phrase: ‘‘The owl of Minerva spreads its wings only with the falling of the dusk.’’4 The same point is made by the English philosopher Gilbert Ryle: ‘‘Intelligent practice is not a stepchild of theory. On the contrary, theorizing is one practice amongst others and is itself intelligently or stupidly conducted.’’5 He goes on to argue that ‘‘knowing that’’ (history) and ‘‘knowing why’’ (philosophy) are categorically different from ‘‘knowing how’’ (practice) in much the same way as being a connoisseur of baseball does not depend at all on the ability to pitch strikes or hit home runs. The reverse can be true also. Players are often inarticulate when it comes to explaining their play to observers. ‘‘Knowing how to operate is not knowing how to tell how to operate.’’6 It is the unusual diplomat, such as Machiavelli or Kissinger, who is also an international theorist of note. According to this epistemology, the project of the practitioner is to shape the world, whereas that of the scholar is to understand it and explain it in coherent terms. The revolutionaries and nationalists, statesmen and diplomatists who gave effect to the twentieth-century revolt against the West succeeded completely in transferring sovereign statehood to Africa and other parts 2 See Robert H. Jackson, ‘‘Civil Science: A Rule-Based Paradigm for Comparative Government’’ (Delivered at the Annual Conference of the American Political Science Association, Chicago, 3–6 September 1987). 3 Hedley Bull, ‘‘International Theory: The Case for a Classical Approach,’’ in K. Knorr and J. N. Rosenau, eds., Contending Approaches to International Politics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969), p. 20 and Martin Wight, ‘‘Why Is There No International Theory?’’ in H. Butterfield and M. Wight, eds., Diplomatic Investigations (London: Allen & Unwin, 1966), p. 17. 4 T. M. Knox, ed., Hegel’s Philosophy of Right (London: Oxford University Press, 1979), p. 13. 5 G. Ryle, The Concept of Mind (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1968), chap. 2. 6 G. Ryle, ‘‘Ordinary Language,’’ in V. C. Chappell, ed., Ordinary Language (Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice-Hall, 1964), p. 32. 206 International Law and International Relations of the non-Western world after a century, more or less, of European colonialism. In the course of doing it they fashioned if not a new, then at least a substantially revised, set of international arrangements which differ dramatically from those imperial ones that previously obstructed the globalization of equal sovereignty. *** civil regimes International regimes may be defined as ‘‘implicit or explicit principles, norms, rules, and decision-making procedures around which actors’ expectations converge in a given area of international relations.’’7 Although much of the emphasis in regime analysis has been in areas of political economy, this definition is highly consistent with civil domains in international relations directly related to sovereign statehood, such as recognition, jurisdiction, intervention, human rights, and so forth. It is similar to Hedley Bull’s constitutional conception of rules in a society of states: ‘‘general imperative principles which require or authorise’’ behavior and which ‘‘may have the status of law, of morality, of custom or etiquette, or simply of operating procedures or ‘rules of the game.’’’8 *** *** Sovereignty, the basic constituent principle of the international civil regime, is not only a normative but essentially a legal relationship. Alan James definessovereign statehoodas‘‘constitutionalindependence’’ofother states. ‘‘All that constitutional independence means is that a state’s constitution is not part of a larger constitutional arrangement.’’9 Sovereignty, like any other human convention, is something that can be acquired and lost, claimed or denied, respected or violated, celebrated or condemned, changed or abandoned, and so forth. It is a historical phenomenon. Because sovereignty is essentially a legal order and basically entails rules, it can very appropriately be understood in terms of a game: an activity constituted and regulated by rules. It is useful to distinguish two logically different but frequently confused kinds of rules: constitutive (civil) and instrumental (organizational). Constitutive rules define 7 Krasner, International Regimes, p. 2. Among contemporary British international theorists the term ‘‘international society’’ is used to denote the same phenomenon. See, for example, Hedley Bull, The Anarchical Society (London: Macmillan, 1967), chaps. 1 and 3. The term ‘‘international regimes’’ is preferable because it denotes principles and rules and not merely regularities or norms: in other words, it is a better jurisprudential term. 8 Bull, ‘‘International Theory,’’ p. 54. 9 James, Sovereign Statehood, p. 25. Quasi-States, Dual Regimes, and Neoclassical Theory 207 the game, whereas instrumental rules are maxims derived from experience which contribute to winning play. The constitutive rules of the sovereignty game include legal equality of states, mutual recognition, nonintervention, making and honoring treaties, diplomacy conducted in accordance with accepted practices, and other civil international relations. On the other hand, foreign policy (whether public or secret) and similar stratagems, as well as the state organizations which correspond to them, are among the major instruments employed by statesmen in pursuing their interests. Classical reason of state and therefore realism as an international theory belong logically to the instrumental part of the sovereignty game.10 Classical rationalism belongs to the constitutive part, with which this article is mainly concerned. Sovereignty began in Europe as an independence de facto between states but became an independence de jure – which is ‘‘sovereignty’’ properly socalled – as natural barriers were overcome by technology, international relations increased, and statesmen subjected their external actions to customary practices which in the course of time acquired the status of law.11 As the system expanded globally into new continents and oceans, states encountered along the way eventually had to be classified.12 Ashanti, a traditional West African kingdom, was independent de facto prior to its conquest by Britain in the late 19th century. The Gold Coast, a British colony in which the kingdom was subordinated, was not sovereign because it was not legally independent of Great Britain. To the contrary, it was constitutionally part of the British Empire.13 Ghana, the sovereign successor to the Gold Coast since 1957 in which Ashanti continues to be subordinated, is legally independent not only of Britain but all other sovereign states. Such changes of status are typical of the movement of international civil regimes over time. Sovereignty is an extremely important political value in itself, as the 20th-century revolt against the West by Third World anticolonialists 10 Classical realism goes one step farther by suggesting that international relations are totally instrumental and not at all an institutionalized game. Hans Morgenthau discloses this conception in his defining statement: ‘‘International politics, like all politics, is a struggle for power.’’ Politics among Nations (New York: Knopf, 1966), p. 25. 11 See C. H. McIlwain, The Growth of Political Thought in the West (New York: Macmillan, 1932), p. 268. 12 See the remarkable collection of essays analyzing this process in Hedley Bull and Adam Watson, ed., The Expansion of International Society (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984), especially Parts I and II. 13 See Martin Wight, British Colonial Constitutions 1947 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1952), pp. 80–81. 208 International Law and International Relations strikingly indicates. It is significant for this reason alone. In addition, however, it is consequential for other political goods, domestic and international, such as order, justice, economic welfare, and so forth.14 Sovereignty, like all constitutive rules, has important consequences, intended and unintended. The rules are intrinsically interesting for international lawyers who, as practitioners, treat the law of sovereignty as a text to master. For international theorists, however, sovereignty is a language to understand.15 Where the rules lead are usually more important than the rules themselves. The unintended consequences are often most interesting theoretically because they are also unexpected and therefore disclose something similar to the refutation of a hypothesis in science.16 An example relevant to this discussion is the surprising civil and socioeconomic adversities which befell many African jurisdictions following their acquisition of sovereignty. As with other constitutive rules, there are important conditions which make sovereignty attainable or unattainable in any particular case. In 1885, for example, the constitutional independence of African states was not only unattainable but also inconceivable. *** A hundred years later the rules and the conditions had changed fundamentally. Among the most important conditions affecting changes in the sovereignty game are the differential power and wealth of states, of course, but also prevailing international moralities and ideologies. In some cases the latter may be the most significant, as I suggest below in discussing the spread of sovereignty to tropical Africa. It should by now be evident that colonialism, in addition to being a socioeconomic phenomenon, is in important and indeed fundamental respects an international civil regime grounded in the law of sovereignty. Colonization and decolonization therefore denote changes in the principles and rules by which people are governed: their movement from one regime to another. More significant than this, however, is a fundamental change of regime which has happened in connection with colonialism: international regime change. *** Decolonization is the sort of basic historical change which we have perhaps come to take for granted but 14 See J. Roland Pennock, ‘‘Political Development, Political Systems, and Political Goods,’’ World Politics 18 (1966), pp. 415–34. 15 The distinction between politics as a literature and as a language is explored by Michael Oakeshott in ‘‘The Study of ‘Politics’ in a University,’’ Rationalism in Politics and Other Essays (London: Methuen, 1962), p. 313. 16 According to Popper this is how science advances. See his Conjectures and Refutations (New York: Harper & Row Torchbooks, 1968). Quasi-States, Dual Regimes, and Neoclassical Theory 209 which signals a fundamental alteration in the constitutive principles of sovereignty, particularly as regards the Third World periphery. decolonization President John F. Kennedy once characterized decolonization as ‘‘a worldwide declaration of independence.’’17 This is certainly true of subSaharan Africa, where in 1955 there were only three independent countries: Ethiopia, Liberia, and South Africa. By the end of 1965, there were thirty-one, and decolonization was looming even in the so-called white redoubt of southern Africa. By 1980, the entire continent was sovereign apart from Namibia. African decolonization, like the partition of the continent three-quarters of a century earlier, is the instance of a straight line in international history: a political artifact largely and in some cases almost entirely divorced from substantive conditions; a supreme example of ‘‘rationalism’’ in Michael Oakeshott’s meaning of politics ‘‘as the crow flies.’’18 It is not only possible but has become conventional to regard a single year – 1960, the year of Prime Minister Harold Macmillan’s famous ‘‘wind of change’’ speech and of the decolonization of the entire French African empire – as a historical dividing line separating the era of European colonialism from that of African independence. That year is matched only by 1884–85, when the continent was subjected to international partition according to rules established by a conference of mainly European states meeting in Berlin. The political map of Africa is devoid by and large of indigenous determinations in its origins. All but a very few traditional political systems were subordinated or submerged by the colonialists. Decolonization rarely resulted in their elevation. ‘‘Most of the boundary lines in Africa are diplomatic in origin and, in very many instances, they are that abomination of the scientific geographers, the straight line.’’19 In colonial Africa, according to an important study, ‘‘the ultimate decisions in the allocation of territories and the delimitation of borders were always made by Europeans.’’20 Despite the fact that it was European in origin, the 17 Quoted by E. Plischke, Microstates in World Affairs (Washington, DC.: American Enterprise Institute, 1977), p. i. 18 Oakeshott, Rationalism in Politics, p. 69. 19 G. L. Beer, African Questions at the Paris Peace Conference (New York: Scribners, 1923), p. 65. 20 S. Touval, The Boundary Politics of Independent Africa (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1972), p. 4. 210 International Law and International Relations political map of Africa was accepted in its entirety by post-colonial African governments. A 1964 resolution of the Organization of African states considered ‘‘that the borders of African States, on the day of their independence, constitute a tangible reality’’ and declared ‘‘that all Member States pledge themselves to respect the borders existing on their achievement of national independence.’’21 Political Africa is an intrinsically imperial cum international construct. Colonial governments were never particularly large or imposing, and it is something of a misnomer to speak of them as colonial ‘‘states.’’ They were comparable not to states but, rather, to small provincial, county, or municipal governments in European countries. We come close to committing the historical fallacy of retrospective determinism if we conceive of them as emergent or prospective national states. A. H. M. Kirk-Greene refers to the British colonial service in Africa as ‘‘the thin white line.’’22 When we speak of a colonial government in Africa we are usually referring only to several hundred and occasionally – in the larger dependencies such as Nigeria and the Belgian Congo – several thousand European officials. Their numbers could be small because colonies were not sovereign: rather, they were parts – often small parts – of a far larger transoceanic imperial state which backed up the colony. Their presence was absolutely crucial, however, and enabled the modest governing apparatus to be a going concern. Unlike the Indian civil service, these administrations were never substantially indigenized at decision-making levels before independence. For all intents and purposes they were the colonial state. In substance, decolonization typically involved the resignation or retirement of European administrators, which therefore meant the elimination of the crucial operative component of empirical statehood. It also involved the loss of the imperial backstop, of course. The new rulers usually could not replace the operative component because there was no group of Africans with comparable experience in running a modern government. After the Europeans left, the new states consequently acquired the unintentional characteristics of ‘‘quasi-states’’ which are summarized below. The Congo, for example, collapsed with the abrupt departure of the Belgians in 1960 and could only be restored to a marginal 21 As quoted in A. McEwen, International Boundaries of East Africa (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971), p. 22. 22 A. Kirk-Greene, ‘‘The Thin White Line: The Size of the British Colonial Service in Africa,’’ African Affairs 79 (1980), pp. 25–44. Quasi-States, Dual Regimes, and Neoclassical Theory 211 semblance of organized statehood by a large-scale UN rescue operation. Most other ex-colonies deteriorated more gradually into pseudostatehood. They are all preserved more or less in this condition by new accommodating norms of international society. Independence, therefore, was not a result of the development of individual colonies to the point of meeting classical empirical qualifications for statehood. On the contrary, it stemmed from a rather sudden and widespread change of mind and mood about the international legitimacy of colonialism which aimed at and resulted in its abolition as an international institution. During and after World War II, colonialism became controversial and finally unacceptable in principle. Self-determination for ex-colonies was transformed into a global human right during the same period. Whatever else it may also have been, decolonization was an international regime change of the first importance: a ‘‘revolutionary’’ change, as Puchala and Hopkins put it. Independence could occur widely and rapidly across Africa because it basically required little more than agreement or acquiescence concerning a new international legal principle that acknowledged as incipiently sovereign all colonies which desired independence. It was essentially a legal transaction: African elites acquired title to self-government from colonial rulers, with the transfer generally recognized – indeed promoted and celebrated – by the international community and particularly the UN General Assembly. *** quasi-states When we look at the contemporary African states, we immediately notice the extent to which most of them depart from current conceptions and expectations of statehood. It is not that they, along with all other states, to some extent fail to live up to their ideals. Rather, it is that they do not disclose the empirical constituents by which real states are ordinarily recognized. African states frequently lack the characteristics of a common or public realm: state offices possess uncertain authority, government organizations are ineffective and plagued by corruption, and the political community is highly segmented ethnically into several ‘‘publics’’ rather than one. The effect is to confuse political obligation almost fatally: Most educated Africans are citizens of two publics in the same society. On the other hand, they belong to a civic public from which they gain materially but to which they give only grudgingly. On the other hand, they belong to a primordial public from which they derive little or no material benefits but to which they are 212 International Law and International Relations expected to give generously and do give materially. To make matters more complicated, their relationship to the primordial public is moral, while that to the civic public is amoral. . . . The unwritten law . . . is that it is legitimate to rob the civic public in order to strengthen the primordial public.23 This statement discloses what undoubtedly is the fundamental predicament of statehood in Africa: its existence almost exclusively as an exploitable treasure trove devoid of moral value. Unlike solidly established authoritarian states, moreover, the typical African state’s apparatus of power is not effectively organized. Corruption and incompetence infiltrate virtually every agency of government, not merely hampering but in most cases undermining state autonomy and capacity. Corruption is integral rather than incidental to African politics.24 Self-enrichment and personal or factional aggrandizement constitute politics. Many ‘‘public’’ organizations are thoroughly ‘‘privatized’’ in the unusual sense that they are riddled with nepotism, patronage, bribery, extortion, and other personal or black market relationships. In what has become a modern classic Stanislav Andreski coins the apt term ‘‘kleptocracy’’ to characterize African systems of government.25 The state in Africa is consequently more a personal- or primordialfavoring political arrangement than a public-regarding realm. Government is less an agency to provide political goods such as law, order, security, justice, or welfare and more a fountain of privilege, wealth, and power for a small elite who control it. If there is a consensus among political scientists it is probably that the state in Africa is neo-patrimonial in character.26 Those who occupy state offices, civilian and military, high and low, are inclined to treat them as possessions rather than positions: to live off their rents – very luxuriously in some cases – and use them to reward persons and cliques who help maintain their power. According to 23 P. Ekeh, ‘‘Colonialism and the Two Publics in Africa,’’ Comparative Studies in Society and History 17 (1975), p. 108. 24 Robert Williams, Political Corruption in Africa (Aldershot, England: Gower Publishing, 1987), chap. 1. 25 Stanislav Andreski, The African Predicament: A Study in the Pathology of Modernization (New York: Atherton Press, 1968), chap. 7. 26 See, among others, Thomas S. Callaghy, The State-Society Struggle: Zaire in Comparative Perspective (New York: Columbia University Press, 1984); Christopher Clapham, Third World Politics (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1985); Robert H. Jackson and Carl G. Rosberg, Personal Rule in Black Africa (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982); and Victor T. LeVine, ‘‘African Patrimonial Regimes in Comparative Perspective,’’ The Journal of Modern African Studies 18 (1980), pp. 657–73. Quasi-States, Dual Regimes, and Neoclassical Theory 213 a candid analysis, ‘‘west African governments represent in themselves the single greatest threat to their citizens, treat the rule of law with contempt, and multiply hasty public shemes designed principally for their own private and collective enrichment.’’ ‘‘Development’’ in such circumstances is empty rhetoric: ‘‘a world of words and numbers detached from material and social realities.’’27 Large segments of national populations – probably a big majority in most cases – cannot or will not draw the necessary distinction between office and incumbent, between the authority and responsibility of officials and their personal influence and discretion, upon which the realization of modern statehood depends. Many governments are incapable of enforcing their writ throughout their territory. *** Most African countries, even the smallest ones, are fairly loose patchworks of plural allegiances and identities somewhat reminiscent of medieval Europe, with the crucial difference that they are defined and supported externally by the institutional framework of sovereignty regardless of their domestic conditions. *** Can we speak intelligibly of African ‘‘states’’ in such circumstances? Arguably we cannot, because they obviously are not yet substantial realities in the conduct of public officials and citizens. They are nominal by and large: abstractions represented by written constitutions, laws, regulations, and the like which yet have too little purchase on behavior to realize the conditions of empirical statehood. The reality is the non-statal and anti-public conduct briefly described. *** Some international theorists therefore speak of these countries as ‘‘nascent,’’ ‘‘quasi,’’ or ‘‘pseudo’’ states to draw attention to the fact that they are states mainly by international ‘‘courtesy.’’28 They enjoy equal sovereignty, as Bull and Watson point out, but they lack established legal and administrative institutions capable of constraining and outlasting the individuals who occupy their offices; ‘‘still less do they reflect respect for constitutions or acceptance of the rule of law.’’29 African states are indeed states by courtesy, but the real question is why such courtesy has been so extensively and uniformly granted almost entirely in disregard of empirical criteria for statehood. It is surely because a new practice has entered into the determination and preservation of statehood on the margins of international society. The new states *** 27 Keith Hart, The Political Economy of West African Agriculture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), pp. 104–5. 28 Bull and Watson, International Society, p. 430. 29 Ibid. 214 International Law and International Relations possess ‘‘juridical statehood’’ derived from a right of self-determination – negative sovereignty – without yet possessing much in the way of empirical statehood, disclosed by a capacity for effective and civil government – positive sovereignty.30 Juridical statehood can be understood as, among other things, the international institution by which Africa and some other extremely underdeveloped parts of the world were brought into the international community on a basis of equal sovereignty rather than some kind of associate statehood. It was invented because it was, arguably, the only way these places could acquire constitutional independence in a short period of time in conformity with the new international equality. juridical statehood in international law We can begin to clarify the juridical framework of African states by glancing at the relevant international law on the subject. Although ‘‘juridical statehood’’ is not a legal term of art, there are of course established legal practices concerning the criteria of statehood. *** The usual point of departure for analysis of these criteria is Article 1 of the Montevideo Convention on Rights and Duties of States (1933), which declares: ‘‘The State as a person of international law should possess the following qualifications: (a) a permanent population; (b) a defined territory; (c) government; and (d) capacity to enter into relations with other States.’’31 Ian Brownlie notes that the core legal idea of a ‘‘state’’ is a stable political community in a territory with an established legal order. ‘‘The existence of effective government, with centralized administrative and legislative organs, is the best evidence of a stable political community.’’32 These empirical criteria are the successors of classical positive international law which emphasized qualifications for admission to the community of states. The main difference from former (late 19th and early 20th century) doctrine is the absence of the standard of ‘‘civilization’’ criterion, which emerged in support of European expansion into the non-Western world to deal not only with the philosophical problem of knowing which governments to recognize as ‘‘authentic’’ sovereigns but 30 See Robert H. Jackson, ‘‘Negative Sovereignty in Sub-Saharan Africa,’’ Review of International Studies 12 (October 1986), pp. 247–64. 31 Quoted by Ian Brownlie, Principles of Public International Law, third ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979), p. 74. 32 Ibid., p. 75. Quasi-States, Dual Regimes, and Neoclassical Theory 215 also with the practical problem of protecting the persons, property, and liberties of Europeans in non-Western countries.33 By the 1930s, however, that qualification was controversial and emphasis had shifted to ‘‘effective government.’’ It was the latter criterion which defenders of colonialism ordinarily used to ward off demands by African nationalists for immediate self-government. This criterion is problematical, however. Part of the difficulty is conceptual. *** Governments are ‘‘institutional’’ rather than ‘‘brute’’ facts in which or concepts of government are bound to enter.34 Legal and political practice is what ultimately determines effective government, and not the reverse. And these practices have changed fundamentally. The problem is disclosed in legal practice.35 *** Writing of Zaire (the Congo) in the early 1960s, following the abrupt departure of the Belgians, when the government literally collapsed, James Crawford comments: Anything less like effective government it would be hard to imagine. Yet despite this there can be little doubt that the Congo was in 1960 a State in the full sense of the term. It was widely recognized. Its application for United Nations membership was approved without dissent.36 Other considerations were evidently more important than this one. The criterion is also problematical in reverse cases. For example, Rhodesia was an effective government at least from 1965 to 1975 when, with the independence of neighboring Mozambique, the civil war began to undermine it. Crawford remarks: ‘‘There can be no doubt that, if the traditional tests for independence . . . applied, Rhodesia would . . . [have become]... an independent state.’’37 However, these tests do not apply any longer and have been replaced by something else. *** Crawford concludes: ‘‘The proposition that statehood must always be equated with effectiveness is not supported by modern practice.’’38 33 See G. W. Gong, The Standard of ‘‘Civilization’’ in International Society (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984), chap. 2. 34 ‘‘A State is not a fact in the sense that a chair is a fact; it is a fact in the sense in which it may be said that a treaty is a fact: that is, a legal status attaching to a certain state of affairs by virtue of certain rules.’’ J. Crawford, ‘‘The Criteria for Statehood in International Law,’’ British Yearbook of International Law 1976–1977 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978), p. 95. 35 See the discussion of ‘‘effective control’’ in Malcolm N. Shaw, Title to Territory in Africa: International Legal Issues (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986), pp. 16–24. 36 Crawford, ‘‘Criteria for Statehood in International Law,’’ pp. 116–17. 37 Ibid., p. 162. Also see the penetrating analysis of the Rhodesian case in James, Sovereign Statehood, pp. 153–60. 38 Crawford, ‘‘Criteria for Statehood in International Law,’’ p. 144. 216 International Law and International Relations Insofar as the criterion has any content today, it is not that of actual effectiveness but of title to exercise authority within a certain territory. In theory this is a ‘‘category mistake,’’ but in international legal and political practice, it is merely an expediency. All ex-colonial governments in Africa today have the title, but far from all are actually effective throughout their territorial jurisdictions. The effectiveness of some is extremely dubious. An international society in which substantial political systems *** are denied legal personality, while quasi-states *** enjoy it, is indicative of new international practice. And according to this practice, once sovereignty is acquired by virtue of independence from colonial rule, then extensive civil strife or breakdown of order or governmental immobility or any other failures are not considered to detract from it. We see international law adapting to the new, inclusive, pluralistic, egalitarian, and far-flung community of states, by a definite and indeed pronounced loosening of empirical qualifications on sovereign statehood. It could not be otherwise if there must be a world exclusively of sovereign states and entirely devoid of colonies, protected states, associate states, or any other nonsovereign jurisdictions. This change arguably reflects the ascendancy of a highly accommodating international morality which, at its center, contains the principle of self-determination as an unqualified, universal human right of all ex-colonial peoples. It is revealed perhaps most clearly in the 1960 UN Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples, which affirmed that ‘‘all peoples have the right to selfdetermination’’ and that ‘‘inadequacy of political, economic, social, or educational preparedness should never serve as a pretext for delaying independence.’’39 Subsequently it has been disclosed by various UN Resolutions condemning colonialism as not only illegitimate but also illegal and justifying anticolonial revolutions.40 In short, one cannot at the same time have empirical qualifications on statehood and such a right institutionalized within the same international regime. Decolonization was necessary to go from old facts to new rights. Nowadays, at least in Africa *** the key if not the sole criterion of statehood is legal independence, based on the ground of self-determination, which is of course a juridical and not an empirical condition. This is almost exactly the reverse of historical practice. Sovereign statehood, as 39 Everyman’s United Nations (New York: United Nations, 1968), pp. 370–71. 40 See especially UN General Assembly Resolutions 2621, 2627, and 2708 of Session XXV, 1970, and 3103 of Session XXVII, 1973. Quasi-States, Dual Regimes, and Neoclassical Theory 217 previously indicated, originated both logically and historically as a de facto independence between states.41 States had it ‘‘primordially’’: ‘‘the nature of the sovereign state as constitutionally insular is analogous to that of the individual as a developed personality, dependent indeed upon society, yet at the same time inner-directed and self-contained.’’42 Traditional sovereignty was like the predemocratic franchise: it was determined by capacities and competencies and therefore acknowledged inequality. When sovereignty was linked to recognition in nineteenth-century positive international law, it was still based on the postulate that the recognized political entity was primordially capable of modern and civilized government. Recognition was ‘‘a sort of juristic baptism.’’43 The analogy rings true because of the reasonable assumption that the one being baptized had the marks and merits of a state. This was reflected in the small number of independent as compared to dependent political systems. In short, statehood was still prior to recognition. Even the practice of ‘‘constitutive recognition’’ was the acknowledgment of relevant political facts which warranted the baptism of some but not all political entities. In other words, sovereignty by its original nature was a privilege of the few rather than a right of the many. Today in *** Africa this relationship is reversed. Independence is based primarily on an external universal right rather than an internal particular reality. *** Juridical statehood divorced from the empirical conditions of states now evidently has a place in international law.44 *** a new dual civil regime These changes disclose the emergence of a new dual civil regime. According to Martin Wight, ‘‘the dual aspect of the states-system’’ was 41 The historical practice involved was expressed in early modern times by the new and radical claim: Rex est imperator in regno suo – the king is emperor within his own realm. See McIlwain, Political Thought, p. 268. Also see the brief but penetrating discussion in Martin Wight, Power Politics, 2d ed. (Baltimore: Penguin Books and Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1986), pp. 25–26. 42 Wight, Power Politics, p. 307. Also see Crawford, ‘‘Criteria for Statehood in International Law,’’ p. 96. 43 Crawford, ‘‘Criteria for Statehood in International Law,‘‘ p. 98. 44 Self-determination is part of the jus cogens according to Brownlie, Principle, p. 515. He also notes (p. 75) that ‘‘self-determination will today be set against the concept of effective government, more particularly when the latter is used in arguments for continuation of colonial rule.’’ 218 International Law and International Relations conceived originally, if tentatively, by Grotius. ‘‘There is an outer circle that embraces all mankind, under natural law, and an inner circle, the corpus Christianorum, bound by the law of Christ.’’45 Dualism in different forms has persisted in international relations ever since. It is a very big subject, of course, and as yet there exists no comprehensive account of which I am aware.46 However, it is possible to review briefly the changing images of dualism in international relations to gain some background perspective on the dual civil regime which exists today and the place of juridical statehood in it. Three approximate ‘‘stages’’ are discernible in the development of international dualism. The first is that apprehended by Grotius: an outer or universal circle governing the relations of mankind and reflected in the jus gentium; and an inner circle of international law among ChristianEuropean nations. Relations between the two spheres, between Europe and the rest of the world, were nevertheless pragmatic politically, uncertain morally, and untidy legally.47 They were conducted on a basis of rough equality notwithstanding the accelerating inequality of power in favor of Europe, and they expressed a fair measure of international toleration. There was not yet anything resembling a global regime under common rules. Insofar as European relations with Africa were concerned, African heads of state had not yet been downgraded from Kings to Chiefs ... . African states were clearly not considered members of the family of nations. They sent no accredited ambassadors to Europe and received none in return ... . Nevertheless, their legal rights were recognized in a series of treaties on which the Europeans based their own rights to their footholds along the coast.48 It was a tentative and initially accommodating encounter between two utterly different worlds, but Africa was a political world and not merely terra nullias. Traditional continental Africa is far better characterized by anthropology or sociology, however, than by political theory, jurisprudence, diplomatic history, or international law. It was a world of societies more than states: ‘‘the nation-State in the European sense did not really develop in Africa.’’49 Even ‘‘states’’ in the anthropological 45 M. Wight, ‘‘The Origins of Our States-system: Geographical Limits,’’ in Systems of States (Leicester: University of Leicester Press, 1977), p. 128. 46 The closest to it is Bull and Watson, International Society. 47 Ian Brownlie, ‘‘The Expansion of International Society: The Consequences for the Law of Nations,’’ in Bull and Watson, International Society, p. 359. 48 P. D. Curtin, The Image of Africa, vol. 1 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1964), pp. 279–80. 49 Shaw, Title to Territory, p. 30. Quasi-States, Dual Regimes, and Neoclassical Theory 219 definition – centralized political systems – of which there were not a large number, exercised uncertain control, and ‘‘the authority and power of the central government faded away more and more the further one went from the centre toward the boundary. Thus boundaries between the states were vague, sometimes overlapping.’’50 Although there were of course complex and particular customs which regulated intercourse among contiguous local societies, ‘‘(t)here was no African international system or international society extending over the continent as a whole, and it is doubtful whether such terms can be applied even to particular areas.’’51 Africa scarcely existed even as a politically recognizable, not to mention a diplomatically recognized, international jurisdiction. *** After the middle of the 19th century a new form of international dualism appeared which was connected with European colonial expansion in Asia and Africa: rough equality and diversity was replaced by precise hierarchy and uniformity in the relations between European and non-European countries, with the former in a position of superiority. The determination of sovereignty throughout the world now derived from a Western and specifically liberal concept of a civil state which postulated certain criteria before international personality could be recognized. As previously indicated, these included the standard of ‘‘civilization’’ as well as effective government. Europe had the power and the will to impose this conception on the rest of the world. Even highly credible non-Western states which were never colonized, such as Japan, had to assert their statehood in these terms.52 The consequence – and arguably the design – was the establishment of numerous colonial dependencies in those parts of the world, such as Africa, which were not considered to have any positive claim to sovereignty on these grounds and could therefore legitimately and legally be ruled by Europeans. The rules were clearly biased in favor of the ‘‘civilized,’’ who also happened to be the strong.53 50 J. Vansina, Kingdoms of the Savanna (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1966), pp. 155–56. Also see Lucy Mair, African Kingdoms (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967), chap. 1. 51 H. Bull, ‘‘European States and African Political Communities,’’ in Bull and Watson, International Society, p. 106. 52 See Hidemi Suganami, ‘‘Japan’s Entry into International Society,’’ in Bull and Watson, International Society, chap. 12. 53 ‘‘[S]trong states accepted the legitimacy of colonialism and weak states would not challenge the status quo.’’ Puchala and Hopkins, ‘‘International Regimes,’’ p. 75. 220 International Law and International Relations For the first time the entire globe was organized in terms of European international law: there was a single regime of world politics of which colonialism was an integral institution. Dualism now consisted of a superior inner circle of sovereign states which were recognized members of the family of nations, and an inferior outer circle of their dependencies in Asia, Africa, and Oceania. Apart from a few notable exceptions, such as Turkey at first and later Japan, the inner circle was composed entirely of European countries and their offspring in the Americas. This dualism confined natural law, when it was not completely disregarded in a postAustinian era of positive law, exclusively to human relations. There was no longer any generally acknowledged jus gentium. The very substantial inequalities along with the obvious cultural differences between the predominantly Western family of nations and the rest of the world – differences also marked by the racial boundary between whites and non-whites – were construed as distinctions of moral and political significance and were reflected by international law. The latest stage of international dualism was first intimated by Wilsonian liberalism and specifically the League of Nations belief in ‘‘the virtue of small states’’ and ‘‘the juridical equality of all states.’’54 The League did not abandon empirical statehood, however, as indicated by, among other things, the mandates system which was the internationalization of colonialism. That was the result of decolonization and the extension of membership in the community of states and specifically the UN, according to the principle of self-determination, to all dependencies which desired it regardless of any other considerations. This international change was essentially normative and basically entailed abolishing the international legal disabilities imposed on non-Western peoples. This new dualism is, of course, the current North-South division, which can be defined in jurisprudential as well as political economy terms. It contains two fundamentally different bases of sovereign statehood. The first is the traditional empirical foundation of the competitive statessystem which still exists in the developed parts of the world and can be extended only by development and not by constitutional legerdemain. International standing in this familiar sphere is determined primarily by military power and alliances, socioeconomic capabilities and resources, internal unity and legitimacy, science and technology, education and 54 See the perennially apposite discussion in Alfred Cobban, The Nation State and National Self-Determination (New York: Crowell, 1969), chap. 4. Quasi-States, Dual Regimes, and Neoclassical Theory 221 welfare, and various other familiar constituents of empirical statehood.55 *** The second is the contemporary moral-legal framework of the accommodative juridical regime which has been fashioned for the most marginal parts of the ex-colonial world and particularly Africa, where extreme underdevelopment still prevails and empirical statehood has yet to be solidly established in most cases. States in this sphere survive primarily by negative sovereignty: the right not to be interfered with that is institutionalized in international law.56 Reinforcing this negative liberty is the contemporary belief in the inherent equality of all peoples regardless of their empirical capabilities and credibilities as organized political systems. *** What is fundamentally changed internationally, therefore, is not the distribution of empirical statehood in the world: that is still located in the developed West, *** although shifting perceptibly and in some cases rapidly in the direction of East Asia and a few other substantially developing parts of the Third World. Rather, it is the moral and legal basis of the states-system which has changed in the direction of equality – particularly racial equality.57 The revolution of the new states is a revolution primarily of international legitimacy and law. *** The biases in the constitutive rules of the sovereignty game today favor the weak. ‘‘For the first time in human history, international law is not on the side of force and power. The novelty of our time resides in the signal divorce between law and force.’’58 To this observation of Mohammed Bedjaoui, an Algerian anti-imperialist lawyer and diplomat, one should add that the divorce is also between international legitimacy and national capability, between juridical statehood and empirical statehood. Sovereignty is today the political currency of the weak. *** ‘‘It is by insisting upon their privileges of sovereignty that they are able to defend their newly won independence.’’59 Why was the international enfranchisement of the weak undertaken? Equality is infectious, as Lynn Miller points out, and once empirical requirements on sovereignty are relaxed to admit 55 See the brilliant analysis in E. L. Jones, The European Miracle (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), chaps. 6 and 7. 56 See Jackson, ‘‘Negative Sovereignty in Sub-Saharan Africa.’’ 57 See R. J. Vincent, ‘‘Racial Equality,’’ in Bull and Watson, International Society, chap. 16. 58 M. Bedjaoui, ‘‘A Third World View of International Organization,’’ in G. Abi-Saab, ed., The Concept of International Organization (Paris: UNESCO, 1981), p. 207. 59 H. Bull, ‘‘The State’s Positive Role in World Affairs,’’ Daedalus, The State 108 (1979), p. 121. 222 International Law and International Relations some new members ‘‘the tendency is irresistible to qualify still other members of the society as well’’ until virtually everyone is a member.60 Decolonization was driven by this international moral pressure. And why in so many cases was juridical statehood necessary as a vehicle of equal sovereignty? It is, of course, impossible to give anything more than a brief answer in passing. Africa, as already indicated, developed very few organized indigenous governments which were recognizable as modern states and even fewer which were demonstrably as capable. Arguably because there is so little useful and relevant political tradition at the level of international society, it was necessary to invent juridical statehood based on colonial boundaries to incorporate the region into the community of states. *** juridical statehood and international theory What are the implications of this dual regime for international theory? If this is indeed a new practice, as I have argued, then its corresponding theory must also be novel to some degree. The question can be addressed in terms of Martin Wight’s theoretical categories of ‘‘rationalism,’’ ‘‘realism,’’ and ‘‘revolutionism.’’61 They are tokens for international constitutionalist theory (Grotius), national interest theory (Machiavelli), and universalist community-of-mankind theory (Kant) *** usage as far as possible.62 Kant in particular is in important respects a forerunner of the contemporary constructivist variety of rationalism.63 Classical Theory The classical theory of the states-system is a rationalist-realist theory of collision prevention which has a direct analog in the traditional liberal 60 Lynn H. Miller, Global Order: Values and Power in International Politics (Boulder and London: Westview Press, 1985), p. 49. 61 H. Bull, ‘‘Martin Wight and the Theory of International Relations,’’ British Journal of International Studies 2 (1976), pp. 104–5. 62 See, for example, the conceptual controversies surrounding the notion of ‘‘neorealism’’ in Robert O. Keohane, ed., Neorealism and Its Critics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986), especially the contributions by Richard Ashley, Robert Keohane, and Robert Gilpin. 63 See, for example, Charles R. Beitz, Political Theory and International Relations (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979), which draws upon the neo-Kantian philosophy of John Rawls. Quasi-States, Dual Regimes, and Neoclassical Theory 223 theory of politics between individuals and groups within states. Classical liberals are realists as well as rationalists. Political good is that which protects the freedom and property of agents: peace, order, and justice. Realists place the emphasis upon power and deterrence, whereas rationalists underline international law. *** Although Hobbes is in some respects a proponent of absolute government, his civil theory has many earmarks of classical liberalism.64 As we know, however, he saw no evidence of an international civil society. Hobbes is a realist. *** He assumes, nevertheless, that not only humans but also states as a result of the social contract have intrinsic value, and he notes how sovereigns in providing for the security of their subjects have ‘‘their weapons pointed, and their eyes fixed on one another.’’65 Positive sovereignty for Hobbes is the source of the good life. Grotius, the rationalist, is more explicit about the value of a state, which is ‘‘a complete association of free men, joined together for the enjoyment of rights and for their common interest.’’66 States are valuable, according to Hersch Lauterpacht in his definitive essay on Grotius, not because they are ‘‘like individuals’’ but because they are ‘‘composed of individual human beings. This is the true meaning of the Grotian analogy of states and individuals.’’67 *** For the classical rationalists, state presuppose international civil society and they become subjects of the international law they contract with one another. The sovereign is a constitutionalist not only domestically but also internationally. *** For Kant, traditional customary international law, which might produce order and periodical peace, is not enough to achieve perpetual peace, which is ‘‘the highest political good.’’68 It is necessary, therefore, to form a peace union of constitutional or ‘‘republican’’ states. Only such states, owing to their domestic civil character, would subscribe to a universal morality – the categorical imperative based on an international social contract – and refrain from war, which is the greatest 64 This is a major feature of Michael Oakeshott’s interpretation of Hobbes. See his Hobbes on Civil Association (Oxford: Blackwell, 1975), chap. 1. 65 Hobbes, Leviathan. 66 Hugo Grotius, De Jure Belli et Pacis Libri, trans. F. Kelsey (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1925), vol. 1, chap. 1, section xiv. 67 Hersch Lauterpacht, ‘‘The Grotian Tradition in International Law,’’ in Falk, Kratochwil and Mendlovitz, International Law, p. 19. 68 Immanuel Kant, Perpetual Peace (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill/Library of Liberal Arts, 1957), Addendum, p. 59. 224 International Law and International Relations political evil. Sovereignty and its built-in hubris would be transcended by a universal community of mankind, and the ultimate political good would finally be realized.69 Juridical statehood and the new dualism can profitably be interrogated from each of these theoretical perspectives. Rationalism Charles Alexandrowicz and others argue that juridical statehood in some cases is a reversion to natural law practice in international relations.70 Nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century positive law was an interregnum in an older Grotian tradition which postulated the universality of the law of nations, self-determination, and non-discrimination in disregard of civilization, religion, race, or color. These principles arguably are ‘‘revived in different shape’’ within the UN legal framework. Alexandrowicz sees this argument as applying to some traditional Asian states but not to most African countries, which are new state entities. N. L. Wallace-Bruce argues, to the contrary, that colonialism interrupted the sovereignty of traditional African states and placed it ‘‘into an eclipse’’ but did not terminate it. Thus, African independence was also a reversion to sovereignty and not an attempt to create it for the first time.71 The difficulty with this argument is the fact that in the vast majority of cases sovereignty in Africa has never reverted to anything remotely resembling traditional states. It has been acquired by ex-colonies which were, as indicated, novel and arbitrary European creations. Most African governments consequently have no authority by virtue of succession to traditional states. One cannot therefore argue that juridical statehood has restored and is protecting the traditional political identities and values of the non-Western world which were the historical subjects of natural law prior to Western imperialism. The new sovereignty, as indicated to the contrary, is far more often undermining and even destroying non-Western political tradition than protecting it.72 69 Ibid., Second Article, pp. 16–20. 70 C. H. Alexandrowicz, ‘‘New and Original States: The Issue of Reversion to Sovereignty,’’ International Affairs 45 (1969), pp. 465–80, and, by the same author, ‘‘The New States and International Law,’’ Millenium 3 (1977), pp. 226–33. 71 N. L. Wallace-Bruce, ‘‘Africa and International Law: The Emergence to Statehood,’’ Journal of Modern African Studies 23 (1985), pp. 575–602. 72 See Walker Connor, ‘‘Nation-Building or Nation-Destroying,’’ World Politics 24, no. 3 (1972), pp. 319–355. Quasi-States, Dual Regimes, and Neoclassical Theory 225 Instead of postulating the existence of states which already afford the good life to inhabitants, the new Third World sovereignty presupposes that international society can promote state-building. Juridical statehood is more appropriately understood, therefore, as a constructive rather than a restorative rationalism. This is an idealist practice and theory which has little in common with the realist and empiricist tendency of classical rationalism.73 It is a novel twentieth-century and indeed mainly post–World War II international doctrine. It is now part of the conventional wisdom of the international community and is evident, for example, not only in negative sovereignty but also in the positive law of the sea, the principles of UN-CTAD, the Group of 77, international aid, and the North-South dialogue generally.74 In short, an unprecedented regime of cooperative international law and action has been created, arguably out of necessity, to generate and accommodate a greatly expanded international society containing numerous quasi-states. Constructivist rationalism is what Burke would call an ‘‘innovation’’: a revolutionary break with the settled international practices of the past.75 In the contemporary international community, unlike that before World War II, membership is gained more by abstract right than by historical and sociological reason. Protection is afforded and assistance provided for what might valuably exist someday but not for what is necessarily of real value today. It is not a small but otherwise complete state which is being protected, in character with Vattel’s famous remark that a dwarf is a man, but rather a quasi-state which someday might be developed into a real state. This is Grotius turned on his head: inverted rationalism.76 Realism Juridical statehood, at first glance, presents difficulties of strict realism because it discloses toleration of powerless quasi-states, *** on the grounds of their absolute claim to sovereignty. Is realism not lurking 73 See F. A. Hayek, ‘‘Kinds of Rationalism,’’ Studies in Philosophy, Politics and Economics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1967), chap. 5. 74 See the excellent analysis of these tendencies by Robert A. Mortimer, The Third World Coalition in International Politics, 2d ed. (Boulder and London: Westview Press, 1984). 75 Edmund Burke, ‘‘Letter to a Noble Lord,’’ in F. W. Rafferty, ed., The Works of Edmund Burke, vol. VI (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1928), pp. 46–7. 76 It is perhaps a parallel to what Wight identified as ‘‘inverted revolutionism,’’ which is the ‘‘pacifist stream’’ of international thought. See Bull, ‘‘Martin Wight and the Theory of International Relations,’’ p. 106. 226 International Law and International Relations somewhere in the background, however? For example, is juridical statehood not a consequence perhaps of Africa’s lack of global significance in the balance of power between East and West? Can realism account for the existence of quasi-states and the contemporary dual international regime? *** The balance of power and other aspects of the competition among real states, which is a game of hardball, are virtually independent of quasi-stateland. Thus, *** United States national security policy could be effective with little real knowledge of Black Africa. This may or may not please Black governments, but their attitude can cause little concern. Such knowledge is incidental more than instrumental to the East-West game of hardball. They are spectators rather than players in that game. Realists might therefore argue that juridical statehood is an instance of uninterested toleration on the part of the real states of the world. The indifference of the major powers enabled African states to become independent, so the argument goes, and it enables them GUMPLLISESSIKALA0 (talk) 04:58, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
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