Matthew Craven

What Happened to Unequal Treaties? The Continuities of Informal Empire

“The barbarians are like beasts and not to be ruled on the same principles as Chinese. Were one to attempt to control them by the great maxims of reason it would tend to nothing but the greatest confusion. The ancient sovereigns well understood this and accordingly ruled barbarians by misrule . . . to rule barbarians by misrule was the true and best way of ruling them.” [Confucian maxim attributed to Su Tung-po, cited in H. Morse, The International Relations of the Chinese Empire (London: Longmans, 1910) I, p. 111]

We are teachers of International Law

In the general debate prior to the onset of war in Iraq, we made public our view, in a letter to the Guardian newspaper, that the war could be justified neither by reference to earlier UN Security Council resolutions nor by way of the doctrine of self-defence. In this article we reflect on some of the anxieties we experienced both before and after that ‘intervention’ in terms of the vision of international law we might unwillingly promote, and in terms of the role we appeared to assume for ourselves, and our professional colleagues, in public debate. Despite our efforts to prevent legal issues from dominating, we came to be viewed as the defenders of an anti-hegemonic legality – resisting the erosion by an opportunistic coalition of the principles of sovereignty, non-intervention, and collective security. We were concerned that this made us appear champions of international law in a way with which none of us was entirely comfortable. On the other hand, in contesting that, we seemed in danger of valorising a politics of expertise that gave international lawyers a privileged position within the debate. We reflect, then, on the consequences, intentional or otherwise, of our intervention, and explore the dilemmas associated with it. The problem with which we finally grapple is whether the relationship between critical scholarship and the techniques associated with it (anti-formalism, complexity, and indeterminacy) is such as to preclude strategic intervention in the effort to stop a war.

The Domestic Application of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights

The central issue that dominates the study of the international law of human rights is that of enforcement. The presumption is that even though States draft and ratify treaties binding themselves, as a matter of international law, to the protection and promotion of human rights, there are no real reciprocal benefits to be derived from compliance such that it is unrealistic to expect States to carry out those obligations in good faith. Hence, the study of the international law of human rights has tended to focus primarily upon the work of the various human rights treaty bodies which undertake supervisory roles over the implementation of the treaty obligations.

Time, History and International Law

Acknowledgments Introduction: International Law and Its Histories, Matt Craven International Law and Its History: The Story of an Unrequited Love, Randall Lesaffer Foreign Office International Legal History, David J. Bederman English Approaches to International Law in the Nineteenth Century, Michael Lobban A Case Study on Jurisprudence as a Source of International Law: Oppenheims Influence, Amanda Perreau-Saussine Time, History, and Sources of Law Peremptory Norms: Is There a Need for New Sources of International Law?, Hazel Fox Reluctant Grundnormen: Articles 31(3)(C) and 42 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties and the Fragmentation of International Law, Jan Klabbers The Time of Conclusion and the Time of Application of Treaties as Points of Reference in the Interpretative Process, Don Greig Piracy and The Origins of Enmity, Gerry Simpson Distance and Contemporaneity in Exploring the Practice of States: The British Archives in Relation to the 1957 Oman and Muscat Incident, Anthony Carty Index.