Coexistence and Cooperation in International Law

Extract

The political scientist and the politician of our day both tend to be skeptical of international law. The political scientist, who is interested in studying the distribution of power, sees in the classic rules of international law neither an adequate description of the conduct of states nor an effective prescription for ordering national conduct. The politician, who is interested in the exercise of power, finds it difficult to realize what he considers vital national interests within the traditional legal framework. Both scholars and practitioners apparently feel that the older rhetoric of international law—nonintervention, peaceful settlement of disputes, the law of war—is to a great extent irrelevant to a world in turmoil. Bombings without declaration of war, illegal reprisals, campaigns of political assassination, and military intervention to crush internal revolt are accepted as part of the backdrop of world conflict. It seems increasingly clear that the classic rules of international law and the basic political and moral principles on which they rest are now used less and less by the great powers even as points of reference. Nothing sounds more old-fashioned than Secretary Stimson's remarks of less than forty years ago, in advising against the establishment of a national intelligence service, that “gentlemen don't read each other's mail.”