A quarter half of a century has passed since Francis Fukuyama declared in The End of History the ultimate triumph of Western liberal democracy. Contrary to this prophecy, we are witnessing the sunset of the Western liberal international legal order. It has been revealed in several critical momentathat liberal internationalism has militant, interventionist character that causes paradoxical consequences of ‘illiberal liberalism’: in order to protect what a liberal State perceives …

In Japan, only a few academic scholars are aware of the plurality of academic scholarly perspectives. Most others do not think that their methods are different from the Western methods. This phenomenon is visible in international law study too. Such an attitude is not groundless. Japanese international law scholars are more internationalized than domestic law scholars. Most of them understand two or three European languages well, have experience of studying …

In den vergangenen Wochen geisterte einmal mehr die Vision einer europäischen Armee durch die Medien und Köpfe einiger europäischer Staats- und Regierungschefs. Die Idee einer stärkeren Kooperation der EU im militärischen Bereich ist nicht neu und auch heute schon in vielen Teilbereichen verwirklicht. Inwieweit sich die Pläne gemeinsamer Streitkräfte aber fernab von dem artikulierten europapolitischen Willen auch durchsetzen lassen, hängt von unterschiedlichen politischen und auch rechtlichen Faktoren ab. Ein Blick …

In an effort to “identify, analyze, and explain similarities and differencesin how international law is understood, interpreted, applied, and approached by different national and international actors”, comparative international law as a research area has recently received more scholarly attention, at a time when faith in international law’s universality seems to be declining. In light of the dynamics of international power, especially the rise of China, “multiperspectivism” is expected to facilitate …

Any history of international law in Japan and the discourse on Japan’s semi-civilized status begin with nineteenth-century European encounters. Although there is thick literature on the ‘pre-modern’ international order in the Far East, the normative connection between Japan’s various responses to this order, on the one hand, and its engagement with the nineteenth-century European notion of the standard of civilization, on the other, is not adequately spelled out. I argue …

“Brexit means Brexit!“ So lautete das Mantra, das von der britischen Premierministerin im Nachklang zur Brexitentscheidung immer wieder vorgetragen wurde. Das offenbarte nicht nur eine gewisse Hilflosigkeit, sondern zeigte zugleich, dass die noch von David Cameron vornehmlich aus innenpolitischen Gründen initiierte (unverbindliche) Volksbefragung auch aus demokratietheoretischer Sicht keine Meisterleistung war: Nicht weil das Ergebnis „falsch“ gewesen wäre, sondern weil keine Ja-/Nein-Frage gestellt worden war. Formal stand zwar die Entscheidung zwischen …

Diverging views and perspectives on international law are unavoidable. The global span of this body of law and the different geographical, cultural, religious and educational backgrounds of those who work with it contribute importantly to the understanding of its normative frameworks. Multiperspectivism and situatedness thus somewhat seem to be inherent to the DNA of international law (see e.g. here; see also this recent book). The fact that scholars from different countries and continents …

Since its inception in 2014, Völkerrechtsblog has been run by dedicated volunteers who spent countless hours of their spare time, and sometimes even their own money, on the blog. As workload and expectations have been growing, the time has come to secure more sustainable funding and to further professionalize the blog. We are thus happy to announce that Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), the German national research funding organization, has awarded funding to …

There was quite some relief in Switzerland when it became clear on Sunday 25thNovember that the so called “initiative on democratic self-determination” had been rejected by the voters (the end result with 66 percent no-votes was much clearer than expected). While it is nothing new in Switzerland that popular initiatives are launched which lead to conflicts with international law (just remember the popular initiatives on the ban of minarets, on the …