25 Sep Is International Law Teleological?
I have had two wonderful days at Princeton’s Center for Theological Inquiry with Jeremy Waldron, Mary Ellen O’Connell, Nicholas Grief and noted theologians discussing the intersection between theology and international law. One of the topics that came up was whether international law is teleological.
My strong assumption is yes. Albert Schweitzer in his Nobel Peace Prize lecture talks about Kant’s “perfection of international law.” He writes,
“In [Kant’s] essay on ‘Perpetual Peace’, which appeared in 1795, and in other publications in which he touches upon the problem of peace, he states his belief that peace will come only with the increasing authority of an international code of law, in accordance with which an international court of arbitration would settle disputes between nations. This authority, he maintains, should be based entirely on the increasing respect which in time, and for purely practical motives, men will hold for the law as such. Kant is unremitting in his insistence that the idea of a league of nations cannot be hoped for as the outcome of ethical argument, but only as the result of the perfecting of law. He believes that this process of perfecting will come of itself. In his opinion, ‘nature, that great artist’ will lead men, very gradually, it is true, and over a very long period of time, through the march of history and the misery of wars, to agree on an international code of law which will guarantee perpetual peace.
It is an interesting idea. Kant was suggesting that international law is in a slow and painful march toward perfection. I rather doubt perfection is possible, but there is something salutory about the idea that international law does not simply exist, it actually has direction, movement, and purpose.
The Preamble to the United Nations underscores this idea when it says that the “Peoples of the United Nations” are determined to “[1] to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war … ;[2] to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small; … [3] to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and [4] to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom.”
That’s not a bad summation of the “telos”, or rather “teloi”, of international law: prevent war, maintain peace, affirm human rights, promote justice and respect for the international rule of law, and improve social progress and standards of life.
International law is teleological to the extent it is pursuing these (and other) ends. These ends have a claim on the nations that is not merely legal, but also moral. And obedience to international law is not only an end to which nations strive, but also a means to other ends.
Yes, yes, & yes! I think the “teloi” of international law serve a critical and indispensable utopian function as well in the sense outlined here by William A. Galston in Justice and the Human Good (1980): ‘Utopian thought attempts to specify and justify the principles of a comprehensively good political order. Typically, the goodness of that order rests on the desirability of the way of life enjoyed by the individuals within it; less frequently, its merits rely on organic features that cannot be reduced to individuals. Whatever their basis, the principles of the political good share certain general features: First, utopian principles are in their intention universally valid, temporally and geographically. Second, the idea of the good order arises out of our experience but does not mirror it in any simple way and is not circumscribed by it. Imagination may combine elements of experience into a new totality that has never existed; reason, seeking to reconcile the contradictions of experience, may transmute its elements. Third, utopias exist in speech; they are “cities of words.” This does not mean that they cannot exist but only that they need not ever. This “counterfactuality” of utopia in no way impedes its evaluative function.… Read more »