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21 - Soviet Approaches to International Law

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 May 2025

By
Lauri Mälksoo
General editor
Randall Lesaffer
Edited by
Robert Kolb  and
Momchil Milanov
Randall Lesaffer
Affiliation:
KU Leuven and Tilburg University
Robert Kolb
Affiliation:
Université de Genève
Momchil Milanov
Affiliation:
International Court of Justice
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Summary

This chapter examines the Soviet theory and practice of international law during the interwar period. Soviet writers of international law such as Korovin, Pashukanis and Vyshinsky developed a Soviet theory of international law which reflected Soviet revolutionary practice. However, as the practice changed over time, Soviet scholars also came to different conclusions and sometimes vehemently disagreed with each other about the right course. The main question which preoccupied them was whether universal international law was still possible after the birth of the first state of the proletariat. While the Soviets rhetorically proposed innovations to international law – the recognition of self-determination, the end to unequal treaties with non-European nations, etc. – they had difficulties implementing these principles in their own practice. A part of the chapter is dedicated to an analysis of the Soviet Union’s membership in the League of Nations from 1934 to 1939 which ended with the country’s expulsion from the organisation soon after the conclusion of the Hitler–Stalin Pact and the aggression against Finland at the end of 1939.

Keywords

Soviet theory and practice of international lawEvgeny PashukanisEvgeny KorovinVyshinskycollective securitycommunist doctrinespheres of influence
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge History of International Law , pp. 686 - 716
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2025

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References

Further Reading

Greenman, Kathryn, Orford, Anne, Anna Saunders and Tzouvala, Ntina (eds.), Revolutions in International Law. The Legacies of 1917 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2021).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
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Kelsen, Hans, The Communist Theory of Law (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, Inc. 1955).Google Scholar
Korovin, Evgeny A., Iaponia i mezhdunarodnoe pravo (Moscow: Sotsekgiz 1936).Google Scholar
Korovin, Evgeny A., Mezhdunarodnye dogovory i akty novoga vremeni (Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe izdatel′stvo 1924).Google Scholar
Korovin, Evgeny A., Mezhdunarodnoe pravo perekhodnogo vremeni (Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe izdatel′stvo 1924).Google Scholar
Krämer, Karl Heinz, ‘Grundsätze und Ziele der Sowjetunion im Völkerbund’, dissertation, Universität Hamburg, 1938.Google Scholar
Kremnev, Petr P., Raspad SSSR. Mezhdunarodno-pravovye problemy (Moscow: Zertsalo-M 2005).Google Scholar
Kunz, Josef L., ‘Sowjet-Russland und das Völkerrecht’, Zeitschrift für Völkerrecht, 13 (1926), 580–6.Google Scholar
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Mälksoo, Lauri, ‘The Soviet approach to the right of peoples to self-determination: Russia’s farewell to jus publicum europaeum’, Journal of the History of International Law, 19 (2017) 200–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mälksoo, Lauri, ‘The treaties of Brest–Litovsk, Versailles and Moscow: contesting sovereignty and hegemony in Eastern Europe 1918–1939’, German Yearbook of International Law, 62 (2019) 189–209.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
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Quigley, John, Soviet Legal Innovations (New York: Cambridge University Press 2007).Google Scholar
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Taracouzio, Timothy A., The Soviet Union and International Law (New York: The Macmillan Company 1935).Google Scholar
Toman, Jiři, ‘L’Union soviétique et le droit des conflits armés’, PhD thesis, University of Geneva, 1997.Google Scholar
Tomson, Edgar, Kriegsbegriff und Kriegsrecht der Sowjetunion (Berlin: Berlin-Verlag 1979).Google Scholar
Triska, Jan F., and Slusser, Robert M., The Theory, Law, and Policy of Soviet Treaties (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1962).Google Scholar
Vyshinsky, Andrey, ‘Osnovnye zadachi nauki sovetskogo sotsialisticheskogo prava’, Sovetskoe gosudarstvo, 4 (1938) 4–55.Google Scholar

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