Abstract
This article addresses the question of linguistic authority in international law. Its starting contention comes from the idea that the use of certain vocabularies and discursive modalities that are commonly associated with the idea of scientificity, in international law, can be understood primarily as a rhetorical strategy aimed at the mobilisation of a certain kind of authority. Against this background, this article proposes to examine some of the particular tropes, rhetorical moves, and analytical devices that are typically associated with this form of international law discourse. It then explores the structural continuity behind the different deployments of scientific language across different historical and normative contexts, focusing in particular on the doctrine of sovereignty in classical international law and the concept of trade distortion in contemporary international trade law.
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Notes
- 1.
Latour (1993 [1991]), p. 32.
- 2.
Buchanan (2003), p. 687.
- 3.
d’Aspremont (2012), p. 579.
- 4.
The phrase ‘who will win and lose’ comes from David Kennedy’s insightful discussion of global governance. Kennedy (2008), p. 850.
- 5.
Anghie (2005), p. 33. Such a question references the debate that emanates from John Austin’s assertion: “that the law obtaining between nations is not positive law: for every positive law is set by a given sovereign to a person or persons in a state of subjection to its author … the law obtaining between nations is law (improperly so called) set by general opinion. The duties which it imposes are enforced by moral sanctions” Austin (1861), p. 177.
- 6.
- 7.
- 8.
Lowe (2007), p. 116 (emphasis added).
- 9.
Anghie (2005), pp. 101–102, 109–112. The figure of Vaughan Lowe is chosen here precisely because of his impeccable standing within the discipline but also because he is quite often to be found noting certain ironies of how international law is envisioned and subsequently enacted, see e.g. Lowe (2007), p. 189 especially Footnote 3.
- 10.
The aim here is not to rehearse the nuances of Anghie’s argument but instead to understand something of the way that language has always been integral to the mechanism of creating legal separation on the basis of otherwise determined difference.
- 11.
Anghie (2005), p. 6.
- 12.
Ibid.
- 13.
Anghie (2005), p. 15. Anghie’s exposure of the myth that naturalist lawyers such as Vitoria were grappling with was not the problem of ‘order among states’ but rather that ‘Vitoria’s work addresses a prior set of questions. Who is sovereign? What are the powers of a sovereign? Are Indians sovereign? What are the rights and duties of the Indians and the Spaniards? How are the rights and duties of the Spanish and the Indians to be decided?’ Ibid., 15, see also 36.
- 14.
Anghie (2005), 12.
- 15.
Anghie (2005), p. 37, 16.
- 16.
Anghie (2005), p. 9, 37 passim.
- 17.
Anghie (2005), p. 9.
- 18.
See e.g. Anghie (2006).
- 19.
The concept of “the Other” comes from Edward Said’s Orientalism. Said (2003 [1978]), p. xii. Anghie makes use of Said’s work to enunciate the role of sovereignty doctrine “in the furtherance of the civilizing mission, [and] the discharge of the white man’s burden.” Anghie (2005), p. 38. Said chooses to frame “Orientalism” as a Foucauldian “discourse” in order to “understand the enormously systematic discipline by which European culture was able to manage—and even produce—the Orient politically, sociologically, militarily, ideologically, scientifically, and imaginatively during the post-Enlightenment period.” Said (2003 [1978]), p. 3.
- 20.
Anghie (2005), p. 30.
- 21.
Anghie (2005), p. 61.
- 22.
- 23.
Anghie (2005), p. 16.
- 24.
- 25.
- 26.
It will be noted from the discussion above that the use of scientific or technical language to help law transcend the very human world of politics was not the first instance of such a technique being employed. In the case of Vitoria above we saw that he sought to replace the transcendent quality of religion with that of nature. Indeed, this very narrative of law moving from religion to nature to science reflects the notions of human society progress. See, Frazer (2009). Cf., Koskenniemi (2002), p. 29: discussing Auguste Comte’s evolutionary theory of States; see also, inter alia, his discussion of Pasquale Fiore’s own particular type of ‘progress’ pp. 54–57.
- 27.
Koskenniemi (2002), pp. 4, 92, 96, 131. Clearly this appears to be at complete odds with Anghie’s characterization of the beginnings of international law being about sovereignty doctrine emerging through colonialism (Anghie (2005), p. 33). In fact the of Koskenniemi and Anghie do not diverge so very much; whilst Anghie does pay particular attention to the role of positivism in forming sovereignty, like Koskenniemi, he emphasizes how the discourse of sovereignty was more subtle than that. Indeed, both authors emphasize the Euro-centric nature of nineteenth century international law and the continuing implications of this. In this way I suggest their similarities are bigger than their differences.
- 28.
- 29.
Koskenniemi (2002), p. 70.
- 30.
Koskenniemi (2002), p. 71.
- 31.
Koskenniemi (2002), pp. 73–75.
- 32.
Koskenniemi (2002), p. 2.
- 33.
Koskenniemi (2002), p. 3.
- 34.
Koskenniemi (2002), p. 16.
- 35.
Koskenniemi (2002), p. 129.
- 36.
Koskenniemi (2002), p. 129.
- 37.
Koskenniemi (2002), pp. 76–77, 288–291.
- 38.
Koskenniemi (2002), p. 96 (emphasis added).
- 39.
Koskenniemi (2002), p. 72.
- 40.
Anghie (2005), p. 60.
- 41.
Anghie (2005), p. 32.
- 42.
Thus though the account of Vitoria’s time given by Anghie suggests that a degree of universalism took place with regards the Spanish expansion it does not compare to the later universalization of nineteenth-century colonialism. Anghie (2005), pp. 16, 19–23, 28–29.
- 43.
Koskenniemi (2002), p. 72.
- 44.
Anghie (2005), pp. 72–73.
- 45.
Koskenniemi (2002), p. 134.
- 46.
Koskenniemi (2002), p. 132.
- 47.
Koskenniemi (2002), pp. 134–135.
- 48.
Koskenniemi (2002), p. 135.
- 49.
- 50.
Anghie (2005), pp. 108–109.
- 51.
Koskenniemi (2002), pp. 176–177.
- 52.
Koskenniemi (2002), p. 177.
- 53.
Koskenniemi (2002), p. 178.
- 54.
- 55.
Bourdieu (1995), p. ix.
- 56.
Bourdieu (1995), p. x.
- 57.
Fakhri (2011), p. 94.
- 58.
- 59.
- 60.
Fakhri (2011), p. 95. Fakhri, makes many important points about the role of the legitimacy debate in “the obscuring of normative assumptions regarding conceptions of the WTO’s function and purpose.” Ibid., 99. Indeed, he highlights the important potential of “legal thinking … to determine the WTO’s function, re-imagine the WTO’s purpose, and argue whether the WTO is even desirable.” Ibid., 100. See also, Howse (2001).
- 61.
Cf., the views of Alvarez that, “[o]rganizational treaty regimes can be used by the powerful to impose rules on the weak (as some suggest is true of the IMF and the Security Council); they can be cartels that impose costs on nonmembers (as appears to be the case with OPEC); or they can serve as impediments to stronger action at the national level or as vehicles for legitimizing the national policies of certain patrons rather than as genuine fiduciaries for the collective membership.” Alvarez (2002), p. 152.
- 62.
- 63.
Lang (2011), p. 265.
- 64.
Alvarez notes the viewpoint which recognizes the danger of “the North [as represented in the WTO] … imposing their value systems and decision-making institutions on the developing world in the guise of demands for such things as transparency.” (2002), p. 156. For an account of resistance to the domination in the WTO of the liberalizing agenda see the account given of Brazil’s negotiation in the GATT/WTO system by Soares De Lima and Hirst (2006), in particular pp. 25–29. See also, Lang (2015), p. 249. For an enlightening discussion of how Aid for Trade operates to reinforce developed and least-developed power imbalance see Kanade (2018), p. 180 et seq.
- 65.
Alvarez (2002), p. 157.
- 66.
Ibid., p. 148. Lang also deals with the notion of an “epistemic community” variously (2011), pp. 181–184, 195, 284–85.
- 67.
- 68.
For an interesting discussion of the unsystematic nature of the use of expert knowledge for definition of legal terms see Lang (2015).
- 69.
See e.g. Charnovitz (2014).
- 70.
Lang (2011), p. 257.
- 71.
Lang (2011), p. 262.
- 72.
Lang (2011), p. 262. Lang marks this movement as an example of “the disembedding of the GATT/WTO’s legal system from the world of trade diplomacy.” Ibid.
- 73.
Lang (2011), pp. 262–263.
- 74.
Lang (2011), p. 264.
- 75.
- 76.
- 77.
- 78.
Koskenniemi (2009), p. 11.
- 79.
- 80.
- 81.
Alvarez (2002), p. 156.
- 82.
- 83.
Alvarez (2002), pp. 156–157.
- 84.
Koskenniemi (2009), p. 11.
- 85.
Lang (2011), p. 244.
- 86.
- 87.
- 88.
Alvarez (2002), p. 158. Cf., Bhagwati (2002), p. 130, who strikes a cautionary note with regards to ‘linkage’; suggesting that lessons be learnt from the ‘“Structural Impediments Initiative”’ in relation to what was perceived to be a Japanese “denial of market access”, and which accordingly took measures against elements of Japanese life and culture which had little to do with economics even with some real imaginative leaps. Ibid., pp. 129–130.
- 89.
Lang (2011), p. 254.
- 90.
Ibid.
- 91.
The second sentence of Article III did not exist in the original GATT 1947 but was added in the GATT 1994.
- 92.
Lang (2011), p. 257.
- 93.
WTO, report of the Appellate Body, Japan—Taxes on Alcoholic Beverages, WT/DS8/AB/R, WT/DS10/AB/R, WT/DS11/AB/R, p. 24.
- 94.
Lang (2011), p. 261.
- 95.
Japan—Taxes on Alcoholic Beverages, p. 21.
- 96.
WTO, report of the Appellate Body, Canada—Certain Measures Concerning Periodicals, WT/DS31/AB/R, para 473. See also WTO, report of the Appellate Body, Korea—Taxes on Alcoholic Beverages, WT/DS75/AB/R, WT/DS84/AB/R, para 118.
- 97.
Korea—Taxes on Alcoholic Beverages, para 114.
- 98.
Alain Supiot—see Supiot (2012), pp. 21, 44—has described this phenomenon under the rubric of “total market”, which describes the forced subservience of broader social-political sphere to the domination of economics.
- 99.
Lang (2011), p. 271.
- 100.
See e.g. Venzke (2011), pp. 1121–1124.
- 101.
WTO, report of the Appellate Body, Brazil—Measures Affecting Imports of Retreaded Tyres, WT/DS332/AB/R, para 139.
- 102.
- 103.
WTO, report of the Appellate Body, US—Import Prohibition of Certain Shrimp and Shrimp Products, WT/DS58/AB/R, para 159 and Brazil—Measures Affecting Imports of Retreaded Tyres, para 224.
- 104.
WTO, report of the Appellate Body, Thailand—Customs and Fiscal Measures on Cigarettes from the Philippines, WT/DS371/AB/R, para 173.
- 105.
Lang (2011), p. 265.
- 106.
Lang (2011), p. 265.
- 107.
Lang (2011), p. 265.
- 108.
Lang (2011), p. 266.
- 109.
See Kleinlein (2012), p. 264.
- 110.
WTO, report of the Appellate Body, EC—Measures Affecting Asbestos and Asbestos Containing Products, WT/DS135/AB/R, para 168; Brazil—Measures Affecting Imports of Retreaded Tyres, para 140.
- 111.
WTO, report of the Appellate Body, Korea—Measures Affecting Imports of Fresh, Chilled and Frozen Beef, WT/DS161/AB/R, WT/DS169/AB/R, para 161.
- 112.
Brazil—Measures Affecting Imports of Retreaded Tyres, para 150.
- 113.
See Kleinlein (2012), p. 265.
- 114.
Van den Bossche and Zdouc (2013), p. 556 also citing Brazil—Measures Affecting Imports of Retreaded Tyres, para 182.
- 115.
Lang (2011), p. 265.
- 116.
Lang (2011), p. 266 (emphasis in the original).
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Richford, A. (2020). The Authority of Language in International Law: From Sovereignty to Economic Certainty. In: Haskell, J., Rasulov, A. (eds) New Voices and New Perspectives in International Economic Law. European Yearbook of International Economic Law(). Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-32512-1_4
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