Dworkin's philosophy for international law

Abstract

Theory of international law has been largely neglected by scholars in the last few decades, but its development is crucial to define the content and scope of international rights and obligations under law. This dissertation aims to further that determination through the analysis of Professor Ronald Dworkin’s jurisprudence. Firstly, it purports to illustrate Dworkin’s theory as presented in his article ‘A New Philosophy for International Law’ (2013), where he identified the popular positivistic grounding of international law in state-by-state consent as the main source of inconsistencies in international law, and suggested the duty of mitigation and the principle of salience as its new philosophical foundations. Furthermore, it seeks to examine weaknesses in the theory, particularly the claims that it is incoherent with Dworkin’s overall philosophy of law, and that it lacks enough cosmopolitanism to present a credible theory of international obligations. Secondly, it argues that Dworkin could have applied his prior ideas in a different direction to the international realm, laying out an alternative that might solve the foregoing issues: the recognition of an international political morality, of which international law is an institutionalized branch. Finally, it identifies ‘the values of the international community’ as those protected by jus cogens norms, and finds the grounds of international law in the duty of each State to protect those values, including through acceptance and recognition of such norms.