Symposium on Monica Hakimi, 'The Jus Ad Bellum’s Regulatory Form'. Informal Regulation and the Hyper-Responsiveness of International Law

AJIL Unbound, Volume 112, 2018 , pp. 97-101

5 Pages Posted: 13 Jul 2018

Date Written: June 18, 2018

Abstract

Monica Hakimi has offered a thought-provoking and timely analysis of how the jus ad bellum operates, placing on the agenda of international legal scholarship a regulatory dynamic that has thus far remained underappreciated. While I believe that a discussion of this dynamic is overdue and thus welcome her plea to take informal regulation seriously, I find some of her underlying assumptions about the nature and function of international law problematic. Therefore, rather than applaud the manifold insightful points Hakimi makes, this essay zeroes in on two related assumptions in her article that I find questionable: first, Hakimi’s reasoning about the law-creating effects of informal regulation and, on a related note, the distinction between legality and legitimacy; and second, her tendency to embrace uncritically the particularistic nature of informal regulation. Both points implicate what I term the “hyper-responsiveness” of the law, that is, the (problematic) notion that every momentary political constellation should be reflected in the content of the law. In embracing law’s hyper-responsiveness, Hakimi’s article side- steps a discussion of the ambivalent implications of informal regulation.

Keywords: Jus Ad Bellum; Hyper-Responsiveness; ECOWAS; Unconstitutional Changes of Government; The Gambia

Suggested Citation

Reinold, Theresa, Symposium on Monica Hakimi, 'The Jus Ad Bellum’s Regulatory Form'. Informal Regulation and the Hyper-Responsiveness of International Law (June 18, 2018). AJIL Unbound, Volume 112, 2018 , pp. 97-101, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3200103

Theresa Reinold (Contact Author)

Duisburg-Essen University ( email )

Lotharstrasse 53
Duisburg, 47057
Germany

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