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Sanctions in International Law

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2017

Josef L. Kunz
Josef L. Kunz*
Affiliation:
Of the Board of Editors
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Extract

Human conduct is regulated by a plurality of normative systems—religious, ethical, conventional and legal norms. Religious and ethical rules embody higher values and are sometimes more effective than legal rules.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Journal of International Law , Volume 54 , Issue 2 , April 1960 , pp. 324 - 347
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of International Law 1960

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References

1 Even in the Soviet Union, Marxist prophecies of living together without law and state have now been relegated ad calendas Graecas.

2 Hans Kelsen, General Theory of Law and State (1945) ; The Law of the United Nations (1950); Collective Security (1957).

3 Political measures against a state not guilty of an international delinquency may he legal or illegal; but they do not constitute sanctions. A delict is a violation of a legally binding norm; one cannot speak of a sanction against a non-acceptance of the proposals of a mediator or conciliator, of the report of an international commission of inquiry, against the non-fulfillment of a normal, legally not binding recommendation of an organ of an international organization. Professor McDougal writes that ‘ ‘ the thin line between recommendations, sustained by effective power, and prescriptions becomes continuously thinner.” (4 South Dakota Law Rev. 41 (Spring, 1959)). This is, of course, a political, not a legal, statement.

4 Eternal condemnation is a religious sanction; but excommunication is a legal sanction, for canon law is a legal order.

5 Hence world public opinion, so often rhetorically invoked, is not a legal sanction. Apart from the fact that often no such opinion exists, or that, at this time, two contrary opinions exist, it is mere disapproval, i.e., a moral, not a legal sanction. For the same reason the Stimson doctrine of non-recognition, although it may have important moral and political value, is not a legal sanction. It may remain without any effect. It is rather, as has been stated, an attitude which needs a sanction.

6 “Whatever else legal philosophers have said about law, they have, with rare exceptions, agreed … that it is enforced by physical sanctions.” (Jerome Hall in 7 Univ. of Buffalo Law Rev. 384 (Spring, 1958). “Enforceability is a necessary characteristic of any system of law” (Sir Gerald Fitzmaurice in 19 Modern Law Review 1 ff. (1958)). In the same sense modern adherents of Catholic natural law; see Jean Dabin on the indispensability of “la contrainte,” Théorie Générale du Droit 36 ff. (2nded., 1953).

7 This state of facts is basic for the Latin American battle against ‘’ intervention.''

8 The right to go to war or use military force could be restricted only by treaty norms; see, e.g., the Drago-Porter Convention of 1907.

9 The Catholic doctrine of helium justum wanted to make war either a sanction or a delict. It did not aim at abolishing war; to the contrary, it insisted on the necessity of war as a sanction, as long as the international community remains primitive, highly aviolation of a rule of positive or natural law (“Unica est et sola causa justa inferendi helium injuria accepta“—Victoria). But the bellum justum doctrine was never positive international law; and even if it had been, it would have faced the same difficulties of application as arose under general international law: the prince, even having a very just cause of war, could hardly go to war against a more powerful state; and the “ justice “ of the war was always self-determined; hence Gentili's doctrine of the “bellum justum ex utraque parte“—and we are back at the free jus ad bellum of general international law.

10 Walter Schiffer, The Legal Community of Mankind (1954).

11 See Josef L. Kunz, ‘’ The Idea of Collective Security in Pan American Developments,” in 6 Western Political Quarterly 658-679 (1953).

12 Latin American writers are right, if they call Sim6n Bolivar the forerunner of Woodrow Wilson and of the League of Nations; but to set the historical record straight, it must be added that Bolivar was also the follower of Abbé de St. Pierre.

13 See Josef L. Kunz, “Bellum justum and bellum legale,” 45 A.J.I.L. 528-534 (1951).

14 Foreign Policy Association, New York, 1932: ‘’ Are sanctions necessary for international organization?” Raymond L. Buell: Yes; John Dewey: No.

15 Gerhart Niemeyer, Law without Force (1941).

16 Saar Territory 1920-1935; the possible administration of trusteeship territories by the United Nations itself (Art. 81 of the U.N. Charter).

17 Suspension from the rights and privileges of membership (Art. 5), expulsion (Art. 6), suspension from the right of voting in the General Assembly (Art. 19), for non-registration of treaties (Art. 102).

18 This corresponds, by analogy to the attempts to eliminate private war in medieval Europe, to the Constitutio Moguntina of 1250; only after the full centralization of the legal order could Emperor Maximilian I in 1495 effectively prohibit private war and make it a crime.

19 For the relation between Art. 94, par. 2, and Art. 39, see Eduardo Jiménez de Aréchaga, Derecho Constitucional de las Naciones Unidas 555-560 (Madrid, 1958). See also the paper by SchachterOscar, “The Enforcement of Arbitral and Judicial Decisions against States,” Proceedings, Second Summer Conference on International Law, Cornell Law School, 1958, pp. 97-103; 54 A.J.I.L. 1 (1960).

20 General Theory of Law and State 278-279.

21 See the excellent discussion on sanctions under general international law in A. Verdross and K. Zemanek, Völkerrecht 343 ff. (4th ed., Vienna, 1959). 22 Thus IT. S. Instructions: Law of Naval Warfare, Sept. 1955, Sec. 441, footnote 21.

23 KunzJosef L., ‘’ Individual and Collective Self-Defense in Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations,” 41 A.J.I.L. 872-879 (1947).

24 D. W. Bowett, Self-Defense in International Law (1958).

25 E.g., Kelsen, Verdross, Jessup (A Modern Law of Nations 166-167).

26 For a full discussion see Jiménez de Aréchaga, op. cit. note 19 above, pp. 399-407.

27 .lbid. 390.

28 Ibid. 195.

29 KunzJosef L., ‘’ The Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance,'’ 42 A.J.I.L. 111-120 (1948).

30 Charles De Visscher, Théories et Réalités en Droit International Public (1953).

31 Op. cit. note 19 above, pp. 197-209.

32 First in his study, “The Charter of the United Nations and General International Law,” in Lipsky (ed.), Law and Politics in the World Community 153-161 (1953).

33 Op. cit. note 19 above, pp. 75-94.

34 Thus McDougal and Feliciano, “Legal Regulation of Resort to International Coercion: Aggression and Self-Defense in Policy Perspective,” 68 Yale Law J. 1059-1165 (1959).

35 41 Dept. of State Bulletin 467-475, at 467 (1959).

36 Bloomfield, Evolution or Revolution? The United Nations and the Problem of Peaceful Territorial Change (1957).

37 Some writers do not see that the system of collective security of the U.N. (or the Organization of American States) is only a system for enforcing peace, but not for the enforcement of international law in general. Thus, e.g., Thomas and Thomas, Non-intervention (1956). But see A. J. Thomas, “Non-Intervention and Public Order in the Americas,” 1959 Proceedings, American Society of International Law 72-77.

38 '’ The Regulation of the Use of Force by Individual States in International Law,'’ Hague Academy of International Law, 81 Recueil des Cours 455-517 (II, 1952).

39 Julius Stone, Aggression and World Order (1958).

40 Thus, e.g., Kelsen, Verdross; refutation of Stone's interpretation by McDougal and Feliciano (loo. Bit. note 34 above); strongly in the same sense: Latin American (Jiménez de Aréchaga), Arab (Nasim Hasan Shah, “Discovery by Intervention,” 53 A.J.I.L. 595-612 (1959)), and Communist writer (K. Skubiszewski, “The Postwar Alliances of Poland and the United Nations Charter,” ibid. 613-634).

41 A. Alvarez, Le Droit International Nouveau (1959).

42 .Loc. cit. note 6 above.

43 ScelleGeorges, “Quelques Réflexions sur 1'Abolition de la Compétence de la Guerre,” 58 Revue Générate de Droit International Public 1 ff. (1954).

44 Emile Giraud, 1957 Annuaire de 1'Institut de Droit International 271-272, 277 (I).

45 Very similar are the statements by the Rapporteur, C. Wilfred Jenks, ibid. 167-168.

46 lbid. 302.

47 McGibbonI . C., “Some Observations on the Part of Protest in International Law,” 30 British Year Book of International Law 293-310 (1953); idem, “The Scope of Acquiescence in International Law,” 31 ibid. 143-186 (1954).

48 KunzJosef L., “Continental Shelf and International Law: Confusion and Abuse,” 50 A.J.I.L. 828-853 (1956).

49 Loc. cit. note 34 above, pp. 1124-1125, footnote 193.

50 Collective Security 10.

51 Morris Greenspan, The Modern Law of Land Warfare vii (1959).

52 KunzJosef L., “The Secretary General on the K61e of the United Nations,” 52 A.J.I.L. 300-304 (1958).

53 KunzJosef L., “ The United Nations and the Rule of Law,” 46 A.J.I.L. 504-508 (1952).

54 Isi Foighel, Nationalization (1957).

55 Loc. cit. note 34 above, p. 1123, footnote 192.

56 Philip C. Jessup, The Use of International Law.

57 McDougalMyres S., “The Impact of International Law upon National Law: A Policy-Inspired Perspective,” 4 South Dakota Law Rev. 25-92 (Spring, 1959).

58 FalkE. A., “International Jurisdiction: Horizontal and Vertical Conceptions of Legal Order,” 32 Temple Law Quarterly 295-320 (Spring, 1959).

59 New York Times, Sept. 15, 1959, p. 47.

60 See Verdross and Zemanek, op. cit. note 21 above, at 356.

61 41 Dept. of State Bulletin 912 (1959); reprinted below, p. 477.

62 Philip C. Jessup and Howard J. Taubenfeld, Controls for Outer Space and the Antarctic Analogy (1959).

63 Henri Spaak, “Problems Facing the West,” 107 Virginia Law Rev. 1085-1097 at 1095 (1959). Emphasis added by this writer.

64 JenningsE. Y., ‘’ The Progress of International Law,'’ 34 British Year Book of International Law 334-355, at 355 (1958).

65 Oppenheim-Lauterpacht, International Law 370 (8th ed., 1955). Emphasis added.