Costanza Margiotta
Introduzione
pp: 7-10
DOI: 10.7382/117243
EN
We gather today at a moment of profound global uncertainty – one in which the very foundations of the international legal order are being questioned, tested and, in some cases, challenged. Yet, as history has shown, it is precisely in times of crisis that law, and international law in particular, is called upon to reaffirm its relevance, to evolve and to redefine its normative and systemic foundations. Should we throw international law overboard, or should we radically renew it, with fundamental changes in its institutions, principles and the way we understand international law itself?
At present, with some exceptions, legal philosophy remains overly focused on national law, often neglecting the broader global legal phenomena that shape our world. This perspective limits our ability to fully grasp the complexity of international law. What we need is a coherent conceptual framework that allows us to study legal phenomena from a truly global perspective – one that does not simply extrapolate from domestic legal theories but instead recognises the distinctiveness of international law and its evolving structures. At first glance, questioning the legal character of international law in the face of its apparent crisis may seem anachronistic, even futile. Still, the purpose of this journal issue is rethinking the nature, normativity and effectiveness of international law, starting from the premise that this is even more required in times of crisis.
This debate is not merely academic, it is deeply connected to the realities of contemporary global conflicts and human rights struggles. As Raji Sourani, founder and director of the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights in Gaza, recently said: “I would have expected Europe to ask us to renounce weapons. Not at all. Instead, they asked us to renounce the law”. This poignant observation reminds us that the effectiveness and legitimacy of international law are not abstract concerns, but urgent, real dilemmas. The choices we make in theorizing its nature will inevitably shape its future trajectory.
We must also recognize that general legal theorists have not developed comprehensive frameworks and theories for analyzing international law. In many ways, legal theory still lacks a coherent theory of international law. As Francesco Viola once observed, it is more common for international lawyers to raise theoretical problems for a general theory of international law than for philosophers to do so. The task of legal theory today can no longer be to seek the basis for the normativity of international law within a preconceived concept of law. Instead, we must ask whether the concept of law developed by legal theories adequately accounts for the legal nature of international law itself.
For this reason, this issue of “Ars Interpretandi” has brought together scholars from different intellectual traditions, to foster a renewed and innovative discourse in times of crisis.
IT
Ci troviamo oggi in un momento di profonda incertezza globale, in cui le fondamenta dell’ordine giuridico internazionale sono messe in discussione, sottoposte a crescenti pressioni e, in taluni casi, apertamente contestate. Tuttavia, è proprio nei tempi di crisi che il diritto – e, in particolare, il diritto internazionale – è chia mato a riaffermare la propria rilevanza, a evolversi e a ridefinire le proprie basi normative e sistemiche. Di fronte a tali sfide, occorre domandarsi se si debba abbandonare il diritto internazionale o, piuttosto, procedere a un suo radicale rinnovamento, trasformandone principi, istituzioni e concezioni teoriche. Ad oggi, con poche eccezioni, la filosofia del diritto appare ancora prevalentemente ancorata al diritto interno e sembra trascurare i fenomeni giuridici globali che segnano il nostro tempo. Questa prospettiva impedisce una piena comprensione della complessità propria del diritto internazionale, che richiede, invece, una cornice concettuale che sappia cogliere la specificità del diritto inter nazionale e delle sue strutture in continua trasformazione. Se, a prima vista, interrogarsi sul carattere giuridico del diritto internazionale può sembrare un esercizio anacronistico, in realtà la crisi attuale impone una riflessione critica sulla sua natura, sulla sua normatività e sulla sua efficacia. Questo dibattito non è solo accademico: è intrinsecamente connesso ai conflitti globali contemporanei e alle lotte per i diritti umani. Come ha amara mente osservato Raji Sourani, fondatore e direttore del Centro palestinese per i diritti umani di Gaza: «Mi sarei aspettato che l’Europa ci chiedesse di rinun ciare alle armi. Macché. Ci chiedeva di rinunciare al diritto» Questa osserva zione, di straordinaria forza evocativa, ci ricorda che l’efficacia e la legittimità del diritto internazionale non sono questioni astratte, bensì dilemmi urgenti e concreti. Le scelte che compiamo nel teorizzare la sua natura ne segneranno inevitabilmente le future traiettorie. La teoria generale del diritto, dal canto suo, non ha ancora sviluppato model li adeguati ad analizzare il diritto internazionale: come ha osservato Francesco Viola, è più frequente che siano gli internazionalisti a sollevare problemi teorici per una teoria generale del diritto internazionale, piuttosto che i filosofi del dirit to. Non si tratta più di fondare la normatività del diritto internazionale su concetti predefiniti di diritto, ma di verificare se tali concetti siano effettivamen te idonei a rendere conto della specificità del diritto internazionale. È con questa consapevolezza che questo numero di “Ars Interpretandi” riunisce contributi di studiosi provenienti da diverse tradizioni intellettuali, con l’obiettivo di promuovere una riflessione innovativa e critica sullo statuto, sulla normatività e sull’efficacia del diritto internazionale in tempi di crisi.
Miodrag Jovanović
On Justice-aptness of International Law
pp: 11-28
DOI: 10.7382/117244
The relationship between law and justice is one of the evergreen themes of legal philosophy. However, the discussion is often framed solely in normative terms, and the philosophy of international law is no exception. This paper proceeds from a contrasting premise that there is an important conceptual relationship between law and justice, which is reflected in the fact that “it necessarily makes sense to ask whether law is just” (Green). In the first part of the paper, I will offer some conceptual clarifications regarding the relation between international law and justice. In doing so, I will mostly stick to Aristotle’s classical distinction between distributive and rectificatory (corrective) justice. In the second and third parts of the paper, I will briefly outline to what extent international law can be appraised in those terms, thereby showing that justice-aptness is an important conceptual feature of this body of legal rules.
keywords: International Law – International Justice – Justice-aptness – Distributive Justice – Rectificatory (Corrective) Justice.
Isabel Trujillo
Guerra e “rule of law” nel diritto internazionale
pp: 29-45
DOI: 10.7382/117245
After the second world war the rule of law has been an alternative to the use of force in the resolution of international conflicts. The main argument for this development was the protection of human rights. In this contribution, the progress and regression of this idea along the path of the life of United Nations will be observed with three aims. The first one is to scrutinize how its reversion affects the ontological issue of the nature of international law. The second is to shed light on the ambiguity of the retrogression of international law. The third one is to deepen the analysis of the reasons that support the necessity to improve the rule of law as an alternative to war.
keywords: Coercion – War – The Nature of Law – International Law – Rule of Law.
Jean d’Aspremont
Thingly Facticity in the International Legal Discourse
pp: 47-70
DOI: 10.7382/117246
This article is premised on the idea that inquiring about the nature of international law, which is a question that has drawn the attention of international lawyers since the inception of international law in its modern form, presupposes that international law is a thing. This article argues that awarding a thingly facticity to international law is the expression of a pervasive mode of thinking that informs international legal thought and practice as a whole and which is called here thingifying thinking. By virtue of thingifying thinking, international law functions as a thingifying discourse that transforms into things all that crosses its path. The argument is made that such pervasive mode of thinking is not benign at all. All that has been thingified, becomes a-constructed and comes to stand outside language, discourse, interpretation, observation, being effectively immunized against critical examination. This paper ultimately makes the point that thingifying thinking bears the hallmarks of fascist thought, thereby calling for the greatest suspicion.
keywords: Thingification – Ontology of Law – Epistemology of Law – Discursive Immunities – Law and Power.
Jan Klabbers, Gianluigi Palombella
(International) Law as Inter-legality
pp: 71-87
DOI: 10.7382/117247
The article aims to account for international law as partaking in the transformation of law as inter-legality. The authors show that thinking in terms of domestic law and international law, whether hermetically sealed off or in Kelsenian monist terms, makes little sense anymore, since both international law and domestic law have become inter- legality. By focusing on judicial reasoning, the article first provides for an illustration of how inter-legality was pioneered. Environment, economy, human rights and trade are the domains where most inter-legality is seen at work as an enlightening notion. Inter- legality is embraced in the analysis as material interconnectedness overcoming the legal closure of discrete orders. Such notion is distinguished from other influential ones. The essay points out that inter-legality can also have a normative function for a better explanation, understanding and managing of the present transformations of law. Inter-legality needs a corresponding attitude and reasoning, based on carefully pondering claims sourced from concurring/conflicting legalities, in order not to take a one-sided course, one which would leave unexplored or unconsidered the possible rightness (or wrongness) and contribution to justice from the different perspectives of other separate legal regimes, equally involved.
keywords: Inter-legality – Legal Reasoning – Monism – Dualism – Nature of International Law.
Monica Garcia-Salmones Rovira
“Interests” Will not Work: Legal Positivism and the Future of Global Legal Order
pp: 89-106
DOI: 10.7382/117248
The article uncovers the tendency of 20th century positivist international law to dealing pragmatically with human beings and human societies as “interests”. It argues that this feature contributes to the fragility of contemporary international institutions and law in a moment such as the current one of retreat to a multipolar world. Far from being apolitical, legal positivism’s theoretical standpoint consistently buttressed capitalism oriented positions, in opposition to more communitarian, or public oriented legal philosophies. In this sense the legal order left to us is more superficial that it could have been. A brief review of Lassa Oppenheim and Hans Kelsen’s theoretical work helps to highlight the historical aspects of the positivism of interests. Further, pointing to the work of Anthony Carty, the article argues that the notion of international community has remained undertheorized. In conclusion the article urges international lawyers to conduct research about communitarian notions of classic natural law such as social human nature and the common good.
keywords: Interests – Economic – Legal Positivism – Lassa Oppenheim – Hans Kelsen – Common Good.
Rebecca Mignot-Mahdavi
Emancipatory Approaches to Time in International Law
pp: 107-123
DOI: 10.7382/117249
Drawing on critical scholarship in international law, this article proposes that both the dominant approaches to events (as short-term markers of time) and dominant modes of narrating the future (as spaces for predictions and solutions) in international legal thought and practice share problematic temporal logics that reinforce existing power structures. By reconceptualizing events as polymorphous constructs and reimagining futuristic narratives in international law beyond prediction and control, the aim is to pave the way for emancipatory approaches to time that embrace multiplicity and uncertainty. This reimagining opens possibilities for international legal thought that disrupts linear temporalities and makes space for modes of history-telling previously foreclosed by dominant historical narratives in the field.
keywords: International Law – Events – Futurism – Temporality – Emancipation.
Valentina Vadi
Il mare come storia: diritto internazionale, tempo e storia
pp: 125-140
DOI: 10.7382/117250
Many studies examine developments in international law by adopting a temporally short and thematically narrow perspective. Due to the increasing normative and institutional fragmentation of international law, many focus on particular and transitory aspects of international law in response to specific geopolitical crises. In contrast, this essay proposes to take an in-depth, composite and broad perspective on issues of international law, drawing on Fernand Braudel’s tripartite theory of time. This theory offers valuable insights into the temporal analysis of international law. In this way, internationalists can overcome the fragmentation of international law, see new horizons, and solve seemingly insoluble problems.
keywords: International Law – Time – History – Theory of Time – Fernand Braudel.
Giuseppe Zaccaria
Recensione
Pollicino, O., Dunn, P. (2024), Intelligenza artificiale e democrazia. Opportunità e rischi di disinformazione e discriminazione. Egea
pp: 141-146
DOI: 10.7382/117251
Il peculiare e per molti versi drammatico momento storico che stiamo attraversando è particolarmente propizio per esplorare il rapporto tra nuove tecnologie e valori democratici. Il digitale, il nuovo ambiente in cui viviamo, è capace nella sua pervasività non solo di plasmare le nostre vite producendo disintermediazione rispetto ai vecchi e tradizionali mediatori (partiti, chiese, sindacati), ma pure di orientare incisivamente – nella figura dell’oligopolio delle sette principali aziende tecnologiche – i comportamenti di milioni di persone, di imprese, di territori e di Stati. Tutto ciò pone prepotentemente sul piatto l’esigenza di limiti, di disciplina e di controllo del difficile rapporto tra oligarchie del digitale e valori propri delle democrazie occidentali, quei valori che sia l’art. 2 del Trattato sull’Unione sia la giurisprudenza degli ultimi anni della Corte di Lussemburgo hanno posto a base dell’identità costituzionale dell’UE.
Il volume di Dunn e Pollicino costituisce anzitutto un informatissimo e puntuale rapporto, assai utile nel campo di una materia complessa e intricata, per dare conto, tramite una lettura sistematica, delle molteplici novità legislative che nel corso dell’ultimo decennio si sono moltiplicate in Europa. Novità che hanno consentito all’UE di realizzare un autentico primato, dando vita ad un imponente sforzo di regolamentazione complessiva dell’IA e disciplinando fenomeni come la protezione dei dati, i servizi e i mercati digitali, la disinformazione praticata tramite fake news. Vi è stato da parte dell’Europa un commendevole sforzo di ridare valore alla normatività. In una parola, il volume descrive il grande sforzo, culminato nel nuovo Regolamento europeo sull’intelligenza artificiale (Artificial Intelligence Act)5 , i cui primi articoli sono entrati in vigore lo scorso 2 febbraio 2025, di disciplinare nelle sue linee essenziali il rapporto tra tecnologia e società. Ma il volume fornisce anche un inquadramento molto efficace dei principali problemi che la crescita vertiginosa delle nuove tecnologie porta con sé. Vengono in particolare focalizzati i due temi, da un lato, dell’opera massiccia di disinformazione resa possibile dall’esplosione informativa e, dall’altro lato, della discriminazione algoritmica. Lungi in definitiva dal consegnarci una visione negativa se non addirittura apocalittica dei problemi sollevati dall’utilizzo su larga scala di sistemi di IA, il volume ne registra puntualmente le caratteristiche, le potenzialità che ne discendono, ma anche i possibili pericoli legati ad un uso non regolato.
