2010 Summer Program

Address by Professor Ivan Shearer on behalf of the Visiting Professors of the Academy 7/10/2009 11:23:59 AM I am greatly honoured by the invitation of the Xiamen Academy to teach at the current summer school of International Law. I look forward to getting to know the students who have enrolled in the course as well as to interact with my fellow professors. I am told that the students this year come from 24 different countries. All of you therefore bring different national legal traditions, life experiences, and cultural influences with you to the study of international law. This, I am sure, will enrich our mutual learning experience. What I hope most, however, is that our exploration of the various aspects of international law in the coming summer school programme will reveal that we find more common ground than differences in approach, and that we do not find at all irreconcilable differences in our fundamental attitudes. One fundamental point I hope we all share is that international law must evolve in order to meet changing conditions and challenges. We cannot remain fixed in past attitudes if we are to use international law as an effective means of conducting international relations. Speaking generally of law, the great American Supreme Court Justice Benjamin Cardozo said, in 1924: “The law, like the traveler, must be ready for the morrow”. The same should be true of international law, and of all those engaged in the practice of that law. The principal shapers of international law are lawyers in the persons of government legal advisers, international judges, counsel before international tribunals, scholars and writers in international law, and lawyers of all kinds whose work impinges at some level on the international plane. Even if the ultimate authority to change or develop international law rests in the hands of national States, the governments of those States require the services of lawyers to help shape, define, and promote national policies. A government that disregards the civilizing influence of law, as understood within the community of nations, or that rejects it as unimportant or irrelevant, is a dangerous government indeed. We cannot ignore that we meet this month in Asia, which, so much overlooked in previous times, now has a vital role to play in the development of international law in the 21st century. A statement made by the presenters of the Second Biennial General Conference of the Asian Society of International Law, to be held next month in Tokyo, puts the point as follows: “The world of the 21st century is likely to become more multi-polar and multi-civilizational than it was in the 20th century. China and India are expected to become superpowers, rivaling the US. Such a multi-polarization of power will mean that there is a greater mix of cultures and religions in the international society. How will the international legal order transform itself amidst such a shift of power and values in the global community? This is an important challenge facing humankind in the 21st century. It is an urgent issue requiring serious deliberation, especially for the Asian people, who are expected to play an important role in the diversification of power and values. Asia needs to make its own proposals regarding the manner in which international law can support the world of the 21st century and realize the common interests of humankind. Asia must share fair and equitable responsibility for the international legal order, its ideas, and systems.” International law has faced many new challenges since I first became a student of the subject about 50 years ago. The concept of climate change, for example, was unknown as a threat to the future of the planet, even to scientists. The proliferation of nuclear weapons technology was but a theoretical possibility, its secrets for the time being safely confined to the five permanent members of the Security Council. The bounty of the oceans as a source of food was regarded as unlimited. Decolonisation promised not only political but also economic liberation to many millions in Africa and Asia. These topics have now become of urgent international concern. Decolonisation has been replaced in many parts of the world by misrule and corruption leading to wars and starvation; efforts to regulate the exploitation of the living resources of the world’s oceans have been only partly effective; nuclear technology has proliferated to the point where there is an imminent threat of its falling into the hands of irresponsible governments or terrorist groups; and the international community is finding it hard to agree on equitable means of combating the worsening of climate change without a diminution of living standards. Some other topics of importance to international law today were scarcely touched upon in my student days. For example, human rights were regarded as essentially lying within the domestic jurisdiction of States, even though general principles had been enunciated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. The law of war was regarded as irrelevant following the defeat of the Axis Powers in 1945 and the institution of collective security through the Charter of the United Nations. Both topics are now essential areas of study for all international lawyers. The former may be regarded as a welcome advance, in that the individual finds a place in a system formerly regarded as being the exclusive province of States. The latter is, in a sense, an unwelcome development in so far as it reflects the failure of the international community to find peaceful solutions to international conflict. It is also immensely dispiriting that despite the major advances in the elaboration of the laws of armed conflict, both international and non-international, and the establishment of international tribunals to try war criminals, atrocities continue to occur on a wide scale, many of them with impunity. If I thus end my remarks on that sombre note I intentionally reflect the urgency and the difficulty of many tasks currently facing international lawyers. But we must never despair of finding solutions. There is much hope in gatherings such as the present summer school of the Xiamen Academy where men and women of good will come together to reaffirm their dedication to finding enduring solutions to the problems of the world and to promoting the rule of law in international affairs.

Address by Professor Ivan Shearer on behalf of the Visiting Professors of the Academy

7/10/2009 11:23:59 AM

I am greatly honoured by the invitation of the Xiamen Academy to teach at the current summer school of International Law. I look forward to getting to know the students who have enrolled in the course as well as to interact with my fellow professors.

I am told that the students this year come from 24 different countries. All of you therefore bring different national legal traditions, life experiences, and cultural influences with you to the study of international law. This, I am sure, will enrich our mutual learning experience. What I hope most, however, is that our exploration of the various aspects of international law in the coming summer school programme will reveal that we find more common ground than differences in approach, and that we do not find at all irreconcilable differences in our fundamental attitudes.

One fundamental point I hope we all share is that international law must evolve in order to meet changing conditions and challenges. We cannot remain fixed in past attitudes if we are to use international law as an effective means of conducting international relations. Speaking generally of law, the great American Supreme Court Justice Benjamin Cardozo said, in 1924:
“The law, like the traveler, must be ready for the morrow”.
The same should be true of international law, and of all those engaged in the practice of that law. The principal shapers of international law are lawyers in the persons of government legal advisers, international judges, counsel before international tribunals, scholars and writers in international law, and lawyers of all kinds whose work impinges at some level on the international plane. Even if the ultimate authority to change or develop international law rests in the hands of national States, the governments of those States require the services of lawyers to help shape, define, and promote national policies. A government that disregards the civilizing influence of law, as understood within the community of nations, or that rejects it as unimportant or irrelevant, is a dangerous government indeed.

We cannot ignore that we meet this month in Asia, which, so much overlooked in previous times, now has a vital role to play in the development of international law in the 21st century. A statement made by the presenters of the Second Biennial General Conference of the Asian Society of International Law, to be held next month in Tokyo, puts the point as follows:
“The world of the 21st century is likely to become more multi-polar and multi-civilizational than it was in the 20th century. China and India are expected to become superpowers, rivaling the US. Such a multi-polarization of power will mean that there is a greater mix of cultures and religions in the international society. How will the international legal order transform itself amidst such a shift of power and values in the global community? This is an important challenge facing humankind in the 21st century. It is an urgent issue requiring serious deliberation, especially for the Asian people, who are expected to play an important role in the diversification of power and values. Asia needs to make its own proposals regarding the manner in which international law can support the world of the 21st century and realize the common interests of humankind. Asia must share fair and equitable responsibility for the international legal order, its ideas, and systems.”

International law has faced many new challenges since I first became a student of the subject about 50 years ago. The concept of climate change, for example, was unknown as a threat to the future of the planet, even to scientists. The proliferation of nuclear weapons technology was but a theoretical possibility, its secrets for the time being safely confined to the five permanent members of the Security Council. The bounty of the oceans as a source of food was regarded as unlimited. Decolonisation promised not only political but also economic liberation to many millions in Africa and Asia. These topics have now become of urgent international concern. Decolonisation has been replaced in many parts of the world by misrule and corruption leading to wars and starvation; efforts to regulate the exploitation of the living resources of the world’s oceans have been only partly effective; nuclear technology has proliferated to the point where there is an imminent threat of its falling into the hands of irresponsible governments or terrorist groups; and the international community is finding it hard to agree on equitable means of combating the worsening of climate change without a diminution of living standards.

Some other topics of importance to international law today were scarcely touched upon in my student days. For example, human rights were regarded as essentially lying within the domestic jurisdiction of States, even though general principles had been enunciated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. The law of war was regarded as irrelevant following the defeat of the Axis Powers in 1945 and the institution of collective security through the Charter of the United Nations. Both topics are now essential areas of study for all international lawyers. The former may be regarded as a welcome advance, in that the individual finds a place in a system formerly regarded as being the exclusive province of States. The latter is, in a sense, an unwelcome development in so far as it reflects the failure of the international community to find peaceful solutions to international conflict. It is also immensely dispiriting that despite the major advances in the elaboration of the laws of armed conflict, both international and non-international, and the establishment of international tribunals to try war criminals, atrocities continue to occur on a wide scale, many of them with impunity.
If I thus end my remarks on that sombre note I intentionally reflect the urgency and the difficulty of many tasks currently facing international lawyers. But we must never despair of finding solutions. There is much hope in gatherings such as the present summer school of the Xiamen Academy where men and women of good will come together to reaffirm their dedication to finding enduring solutions to the problems of the world and to promoting the rule of law in international affairs.