Effective International Law Prevents Conflict.

All states in the contemporary world, including great powers, are compelled to justify their behaviour according to legal rules and accepted norms. This essay will analyse the extent to which states comply and the reasons for their compliance. Essentially, the extent to which states follow their international obligations has developed over the past 400 years. From a historical perspective, international obligations and accepted norms were founded following two key developments in European history. In 1648, the Treaty of Westphalia ended the Thirty Years’ War by acknowledging the sovereign authority of various European princes.[1] This event marked the advent of traditional international law, based on principles of territoriality and state autonomy. Then in 1945, again following major wars initiated in Europe, states began to integrate on a global scale.[2] The UN Charter became the international framework for which norms of sovereignty and non-intervention were enshrined. Now, as a result of modern technology, communication, transport, and more, the evolving process of Globalisation, “The internationalization of the world”,[3] has provided an opportunity for international law and accepted norms to reach every corner of the globe. However, the development of international law and accepted norms has not compelled states to comply all the time. Instead, the trend over the past 400 years has shown that states have been mostly compelled to justify their behavior according to legal rules and accepted norms. The emphasis on mostly should be stressed. Even though the UN Charter does not permit violating sovereignty through the use of aggression, the extent to which states follow their international obligations varies. Louis Henkin’s book, How Nations Behave, articulates the extent of compliance.[4] He said, “Almost all nations observe almost all principles of international law and almost all of their obligations almost all the time”.[5] As such, the trend in contemporary international relations is that war remains possible, but it is much less acceptable now than it was a century or even half a century ago.[6] The benefit of the trend is that almost full compliance is said to lead states into a pattern of obedience and predictable behaviour.[7] Therefore, conflict only arises when countries fail to comply. States attempt to manage the friction with ongoing compliance through the principle of pacta sunt servanda – the adherence to agreements.[8] Over time, such agreements to norms and treaties have diminished sovereignty, increased international institutions, given rise to non-state actors, and rapidly developed the contemporary customary and treaty based rules system.[9] The evolution of the dispute-settlement procedures of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the establishment of the International Criminal Court (ICC), and the establishment of numerous global treaties illustrate states agreeing voluntarily to give up a portion of their sovereignty.