Introduction to Part I

Abstract

Part I is intended to unfold and develop the principal issues that have been raised in Sects. 1.2–1.4. Chapter 3 returns to the moment when the PCIJ, in the Case of the S.S. “Lotus”, was asked by the parties, France and Turkey, to choose between the framework of authorization and the framework of obligation described in Sect. 1.3. In order to illustrate the actuality of this question, the chapter then turns to Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons, where the issue was revisited by the Nuclear Weapon States and Non-Nuclear Weapon States. Both Courts, spanning the transition from the League of Nations to the United Nations, opted for the framework of obligation. In its tail, the chapter then describes how the question was extensively pondered by Judge Shahbuddeen in his Dissenting Opinion in Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons. The objective structural framework which he derived from the work of Prosper Weil approximates the reformulated framework identified in Sect. 1.4. The analysis contained in this chapter is located at the international plane.