How is international law enforced

As a result, other nations can influence their actions by applying pressure, in the form of trade sanctions, travel restrictions, breaking diplomatic relations, or refusing to honor their own treaty obligations.

Often, for particularly egregious violations, a state will also organize a bloc of aligned states to implement the punitive measures collectively and diminish any opportunity cost to the punishing states. In some instances, these punitive measures may even be automatic and included in the initial agreement, such as the Iran nuclear deal, which included automatic punishments for breach of the agreement by Iran and release from the agreement for breach of the agreement by the other nations.

However, at other times, it may be less specific and result from violations of implicit norms. Ultimately, the Security Council of the United Nations is empowered to broadly enforce international law. They can do this through sanctions, peace-keeping operations, or formal censures. While censures have no direct, negative impact, they serve as a symbol of the potential reputational harm that comes with violating international law.

However, when the Security Council imposes sanctions or organizes peace-keeping operations, it can have significant impacts given that all of the permanent members of the Security Council will generally engage supportively and all member-states will have to at least appear to abide by them.

The permanent members of the Security Council often stand in the way of action being taken against them or their close allies, so alternative mechanisms exist for resolving disputes. Under General Assembly Resolution , the General Assembly can act when the Security Council has failed to although these actions will be non-binding. The International Court of Justice also decides disputes between individual nations; however, it has limited scope and does not have any direct power to enforce its decisions.

Both the Security Council and I. Finally, the International Criminal Court enforces certain aspects of international law, primarily human rights law, customarily and as established by the U. Less commonly, nations will use their national court systems to enforce international legal obligations against private citizens of other nations under the doctrine of universal jurisdiction.

This originally arose from laws regarding piracy and has been extended to include crimes against humanity and, in some cases, terrorism. Therefore, a question arises whether in the current state of affairs international law can be enforced.

This chapter uses key theories of international relations IR to explain the problem of enforcement in the context of international law. In particular, the chapter focuses on three international institutions that play a role in the maintenance of global order: United Nations Security Council, International Court of Justice, and International Criminal Court.

These institutions are analyzed from the perspective of IR theories to explain their emergence and functionality. Having different levels of impact on international law, all three institutions derive their authority from the States that delegate to them decision powers. Finally, the chapter offers some thoughts on the implications emerging powers have on the changing global order. Skip to main content. This service is more advanced with JavaScript available.

Advertisement Hide. The Enforcement of International Law. Authors Authors and affiliations Elena Kantorowicz-Reznichenko. Chapter First Online: 23 November Keywords Enforcement International law International relations theories Security council International court of justice International criminal court.

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Tourinho Eds. The effectiveness of United Nations Targeted Sanctions. Again, this is so whether the legal institutions are domestic or international.

One thinks on the domestic scene of the myriad legal rules and processes that affect daily life-rules having to do with the creation and performance of contracts, the existence of property rights, the Uniform Commercial Code, and so forth. Most of the time they take care of themselves, without the need for intervention by courts, sheriffs or other governmental agencies. That is true as well when international rules and processes relate to ordinary relationships.

One thinks on the international scene of the creation and performance of ordinary treaties-tax or commercial treaties, for example-or compliance with "rules of the road" set by the International Maritime Organization or International Civil Aviation Organization for safe navigation at sea or in the airspace above the high seas. Rules of this sort tend to be self-enforcing, simply because all the actors recognize that it is in their self-interest to comply if they want other actors to comply-the same reason why most of the relatively mundane domestic rules are self-enforcing.

In those instances where international rules turn out not to be self-enforcing, international law recognizes various enforcement mechanisms short of Chapter VII sanctions.

The classic- and most problematic-mechanism is self-help, which in its most severe form involves reprisals against the government that is thought to have breached its legal obligations. One thinks of vigilante justice as the domestic counterpart.

But international law has developed to the point where reprisals involving the use of armed force are no longer permissible in the absence of Security Council authorization. Thus, lawful reprisals are things like economic countermeasures to bring pressure on another government to change its ways. The countermeasures should not have effects that are greatly disproportionate to the gravity of the offense.

In this form, self-help on the international scene looks less like vigilante justice than it may have before the advent of the UN Charter and the Geneva Conventions on the use of armed force. Not all of the international enforcement mechanisms short of Chapter VII are unilateral.

International organizations-not just the UN, but also its Specialized Agencies and regional organizations-have developed procedures that allow pressure to be brought against governments that do not comply with recognized standards of conduct. Noteworthy in this regard are the "mobilization of shame" and the application of pressure.

Several important multilateral treaties, particularly in the human rights field, require states parties to report on their compliance and to send representatives to appear before treaty-monitoring bodies to explain how they have complied or why they have not. This procedure gives the monitoring bodies opportunities to apply pressure for compliance.

Sometimes this is done informally, sometimes more formally in writing. Many international organizations have a club-like atmosphere for the national representatives to them. If their governments behave in such a way as to hinder the attainment of the organizations goals, other members can make club membership uncomfortable for them in various ways.

The most extreme would be suspension or expulsion from membership, as could occur in the United Nations under certain circumstances set forth in Articles 5 and 6 of the Charter. But much more common is the subtle or not-so-subtle expression of disapproval.

That can affect a member state's conduct, especially if maintained over a period of time. The Convention requires each party to suppress the use of forced or compulsory labor, subject to some exceptions-including an exception for any service that forms part of the normal civic obligations of citizens.

The Russian Republic had issued a decree authorizing an official body to direct to specific employment any person "evading socially useful work and leading an anti-social, parasitic way of life. The Soviet Union maintained that it was simply enforcing a normal civic obligation of its citizens. Nevertheless, over a period of years the committee of experts called the Soviet representatives on the carpet, and slowly the Russian Republic loosened its rules on "parasitic lifestyles.

It was a case of partially effective enforcement through the mobilization of shame-about all that could be expected when the respondent state was one of the superpowers.