Critical reflections on the Westphalian assumptions Essay

Reflection Piece Critical reflections on the Westphalian assumptions of international law and organization: a crisis of legitimacy. Although the lack of world government, most people agree that there is a body of norms and rules of conduct that generate international law. International law has generally examinated from two dissimilar positions. When power and interests clashes, skeptics see international law as a insignificant and nonexistent. Especially, the article of A. Claire Outler focuses on this problem. However,others have occasionally seen international law as a strong tool to organize and change the behaviour of states for the better. The main impotance or constraint of international law is the conflicting and generally uncertain provisions in international treaties and conventions. Also, legal system lacks the compulsory Juristiction and an adopted hierarchy because most powerful and developed countries ignore and try to run way the limitations of international law. I think that this situation clearly shows the weaknesses of international law. A influential legal code requires to reconcile itself to actual behaviour of individuals and states and not try to essentially remake them according to abstract moral principles. In general, realist are more suspicious about the issue of international law on the other hand,liberals and constructivist rely on it is, and should be, a crucial force shaping the behavior of states. To sum up, I think that this article was a very useful because it shows the negative and positive aspects of the issue clearly. However, some part of the article was a little bit biased about the validity of international law. It generally focuses on deficiencies of international law. I agree that there is lack of world government and international law hasn’t compulsory Jurisdiction but this doesn’t mean that international law is not real and necessary law.