The paper analyzes international relations from the perspective of the anarchical society of sovereign states, according to which two poles influence the state behavior. The first pole derives from the societal aspect and creates imperatives for state behavior according to common international norms, values, principles and rules, including international law and institutions. The second pole derives from the anarchical aspect and creates imperatives for state behavior according to the need of states to maximize their security and stave off threats. The influence of these sometimes conflicting imperatives is shown by an examination of collective security, the inviolability of borders, the re-emergence of private warfare, ethnic cleansing and pre-emptive plus preventive warfare.
The purpose of this paper is to examine constraints on the application of international law in an international system whose defining characteristic is "anarchy", defined as the absence of a ruler over its main units—the sovereign states. It will be argued that anarchy is not necessarily equivalent to a Hobbesian state of nature in which there is bellum omnium contra omnes (war of all against all). Indeed, it will be argued that the sovereign states have developed over the past few centuries common values and norms, so that they constitute a society with common legal and institutional structures (there have been other international societies in earlier phases of history, but they are beyond the scope of this paper). Nonetheless this is an anarchical society in which external security threats are actually or potentially ever present, and in which, therefore, the states are forced to husband or even maximize their power, defined in international politics as the ability to fight wars, in order to secure their existence and vital interests. Consequently, the imperatives of international law and institutions are often in conflict with the imperatives of order, power and security, placing severe limits on the application of the former.
The first part of the paper analyzes the concepts of anarchy and the international society of sovereign states, in order to show the origin of these conflicting imperatives. The second part examines the imperatives derived from the needs of the society of sovereign states as a whole, regarding, (1) collect ve security; (2) inviolability of borders; and (3) re-emergence of private warfare. The third part examines the imperatives of power and security at the level of individual actors, i.e., states, regarding, (1) ethnic cleansing; and (2) pre-emptive and preventive warfare. |
