Book contents
- Christianity and International Law
- Law and Christianity
- Christianity and International Law
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Tables
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Christianity and International Law: An Introduction
- 2 The Byzantine Commonwealth and the Emerging Features of a Law of Nations in the First Millennium
- 3 Christianity and the Birth of Ambassadorial Deontology: Some Historical Notes
- 4 Formation and Refiguration of the Canon Law on Trade with Infidels (c.1200–c.1600)
- 5 God, Sovereignty, and the Morality of Intervention outside Europe
- 6 The Significance of Christian Charity to International Law
- 7 Hugo Grotius: On Freedom of the Seas and Human Nature
- 8 Ius gentium et naturae: The Human Conscience and Early Modern International Law
- 9 Legalizing Antisemitism? The Legacy of Savigny’s Roman(tic) Law
- 10 Missionary Knowledge and the Empirical Foundations of Modern International Legal Thought
- 11 Standards for a Righteous and Civilized World: Religion and America’s Emergence as a Global Power
- 12 International Protestantism and Its Changing Religious Freedoms
- 13 Beyond the Freedom of Worship: The Contested Meaning of Religious Freedom in International Human Rights Law and Politics, 1945–1967
- 14 Process Theology and a Pluralistic Foundation for Human Rights
- 15 Christianity and Human Rights Law: Orthodox Perspectives
- 16 Conquest, Sacred Sites, and “Religion” in a Time of Crisis
- 17 Constantine’s Legacy: Preserving Empire While Undermining International Law
- 18 Hopelessly Practicing Law: Asylum Seekers, Advocates, and Hostile Jurisdictions
- 19 The Hidden Theology of International Legal Positivism
- Select Bibliography
- Index
- References
19 - The Hidden Theology of International Legal Positivism
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 May 2021
Book contents
- Christianity and International Law
- Law and Christianity
- Christianity and International Law
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Tables
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Christianity and International Law: An Introduction
- 2 The Byzantine Commonwealth and the Emerging Features of a Law of Nations in the First Millennium
- 3 Christianity and the Birth of Ambassadorial Deontology: Some Historical Notes
- 4 Formation and Refiguration of the Canon Law on Trade with Infidels (c.1200–c.1600)
- 5 God, Sovereignty, and the Morality of Intervention outside Europe
- 6 The Significance of Christian Charity to International Law
- 7 Hugo Grotius: On Freedom of the Seas and Human Nature
- 8 Ius gentium et naturae: The Human Conscience and Early Modern International Law
- 9 Legalizing Antisemitism? The Legacy of Savigny’s Roman(tic) Law
- 10 Missionary Knowledge and the Empirical Foundations of Modern International Legal Thought
- 11 Standards for a Righteous and Civilized World: Religion and America’s Emergence as a Global Power
- 12 International Protestantism and Its Changing Religious Freedoms
- 13 Beyond the Freedom of Worship: The Contested Meaning of Religious Freedom in International Human Rights Law and Politics, 1945–1967
- 14 Process Theology and a Pluralistic Foundation for Human Rights
- 15 Christianity and Human Rights Law: Orthodox Perspectives
- 16 Conquest, Sacred Sites, and “Religion” in a Time of Crisis
- 17 Constantine’s Legacy: Preserving Empire While Undermining International Law
- 18 Hopelessly Practicing Law: Asylum Seekers, Advocates, and Hostile Jurisdictions
- 19 The Hidden Theology of International Legal Positivism
- Select Bibliography
- Index
- References
Summary
This chapter is a study in the critical deconstruction of one of the most popular theoretical paradigms in modern international law and its basic ideological impact on international law as a discipline. The paradigm in question is voluntarist positivism, and the general thrust of its ideological impact on the discipline of international law, I am going to argue, has been to encourage within it the rise and spread of what one might call a theoretical culture of bad faith – a mix of false consciousness, self-censorship, and a “crooked attitude towards truth and knowledge”– particularly, in what concerns international law’s relationship with natural law and Christian theology.
The last two sentences use a lot of notoriously ambivalent concepts. For the prevention of doubt, let me explain briefly how I understand them in these pages.
Keywords
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- Christianity and International LawAn Introduction, pp. 415 - 460Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2021
References
Recommended Reading
Fassbender, Bardo, and Peters, Anne, eds. The Oxford Handbook of the History of International Law. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012.Google Scholar
Kammerhofer, Jörg, and d’Aspremont, Jean, eds. International Legal Positivism in a Post-Modern World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014.Google Scholar
Kennedy, David. “A New World Order: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow.” Transnational Law Contemporary Problems 4, no. 2 (1994): 329–76.Google Scholar
Kennedy, Duncan. A Critique of Adjudication: (fin de siècle). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997.Google Scholar
Marks, Susan. The Riddle of All Constitutions: International Law, Democracy, and the Critique of Ideology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.Google Scholar
Olsen, Frances E. “The Family and the Market: A Study of Ideology and Legal Reform.” Harvard Law Review 96, no. 7 (1983): 1497–578.Google Scholar