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A Case in the Politics of Form: Yearbooks of International Law

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Netherlands Yearbook of International Law 2019

Part of the book series: Netherlands Yearbook of International Law ((NYIL,volume 50))

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Abstract

Yearbooks are a specific type of institutional and scholarly activity among experts that identify with international law. They play an important and unique role in our discipline. How so, and toward what ends? This contribution tries to answer these questions, and proposes that the yearbook helps facilitate tight control over the formal rhetorical economy and the politics of what is international law.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Schlag 1996, at 29. For an effort to apply the politics of form to an edited volume in international law (and introducing family systems therapy), see Haskell 2019, at 45.

  2. 2.

    I will unpack the character of the yearbook in the contribution, but the close communion between AJIL and its European counterparts goes back to its founding. Oppenheim 1908, at 313. ‘The first volume of this American Journal of International Law has shown … that America possesses a number of prominent international jurists who are of equal rank to those of Europe as regards learning, idealism, constructive power, and literary skill. Undoubtedly, this Journal has at once with its appearance taken up the position of a leading magazine of the science of international law.’ In a slightly passive aggressive gesture, he goes on to note that while he is not an American, he thought it appropriate to ‘draw the task and the method’ of the science of international law into the journal—not wishing to be seen as a ‘high priest’, but at the same warning that he will be ‘of course, outspoken’ and to ‘serve as a guide for those younger students… without the proper views for the valuation and appreciation of the materials at hand’. Ibid., at 313–314.

  3. 3.

    Rolin-Jaequemyns 1877, at vi–viii.

  4. 4.

    See, for instance, the inaugural issues of the American Journal of International Law, Canadian Yearbook of International Law, Finnish Yearbook of International Law, Netherlands Yearbook of International Law, South African Yearbook of International Law, and Spanish Yearbook of International Law.

  5. 5.

    In the North American context, for example, the Carnegie Institution, Harvard Law School and US government funding are commonly acknowledged.

  6. 6.

    This is addressed more fully later in the chapter.

  7. 7.

    The Editors 1970, at x.

  8. 8.

    Diez de Velasco 1991, at xvi; Tomas 2013–2014, at 86. Something not all that dissimilar may be seen in the inaugural text of the German Yearbook of International Law. For a reflection on its founding and what might count as a ‘German approach’, Giegerich and Zimmermann 2007, at 16.

  9. 9.

    Just a few illustrations of this correlation: African Yearbook 1993/Nobel Peace Prize to Mandela and Klerk in 1993; Australian Yearbook 1965/Troops to Vietnam in 1964 and indigenous people voting enfranchisement in Queensland 1965; Baltic Yearbook 2001/Ten year anniversary of independence from the Soviet Union; British Yearbook 1920–21/End of World War One 1918; Finnish Yearbook 1990/Neutrality recognised by the Soviet Union in 1989; Polish Yearbook 1967–68/Prague Spring ends in 1968.

  10. 10.

    By way of example, though common across the majority of yearbooks, Starke 1965, at 3.

  11. 11.

    For scholarly work in this direction, see Rasulov 2012, at 151.

  12. 12.

    When we refer to the opinion of jurists, of custom, of the common law, we tend to be referring to a community whose total scale could fit a law school theatre room. On this general theme, Boer 2016, at 1021; Campos 1994, at 152.

  13. 13.

    We might think of this as something loosely along the lines of a symptomatic method of reading. Althusser 2009, at 35.

  14. 14.

    Schlag 1996, at 62.

  15. 15.

    For the way the professional academic discourse is designed to narrow our imagination, Kennedy 1980, at 393; Kennedy 1999, at 9; Schlag 1996, at 29.

  16. 16.

    Serra 2013–2014, at 3–6.

  17. 17.

    Nys 1911, at 871–875; Jessup 1964, 342–343, 356.

  18. 18.

    Wright 1916, at 712; Fachiri 1929, at 733, 747–749; Scelle 1911, at 174.

  19. 19.

    Root 1911, at 584–584; Gillroy 2007, at 434–439, 450–469.

  20. 20.

    I tend to think of this as an ‘exchange theory’ of international law, premised on a specific theory of money closely associated with neoliberal twentieth century thought. See, for example, Scott 1907, at 846. Ours is a tradition meant to protect the market's price discovery from state populations where sovereignty is the commodity, treaties contain all the terms, state practice offers all relevant information, and the invisible hand works through custom. For a discussion of this turn to ethnographic individualism and formal cultural units in the social sciences, see Purcell 1973, at 22–67. We have yet to fully develop a neo-chartalist theory for international law, let alone a general legal theory. On the topic of neo-chartalism and law, Kreitner 2015, at 7.

  21. 21.

    Finch 1956, at 299; Koskenniemi 2001, at 13–16; Slobodian 2018, at 11–15.

  22. 22.

    Lansing 1919, at 632–633.

  23. 23.

    Brierly 1924, at 7. This was felt to be especially the case with the entrance of former colonised states. Cohen 1963, at 30–32.

  24. 24.

    Eagleton 1942, 230; Root 1907, at 2–3.

  25. 25.

    Bilder 1964, at 730; Visscher 1956, at 468.

  26. 26.

    Just how strong the commitment, the (to put it charitably) Nazi collaborator Hermann Josef Abs was invited to speak on the importance of safeguarding capital and received a warm welcome from the crowd at the 50th anniversary of the American Society of International Law.

  27. 27.

    Root 1916, at 3. This faith remains a staple among educated cosmopolitan society. See, for instance, Baere and Mills 2011, at 32.

  28. 28.

    Nijman 2011, at 7; Kennedy 1980, at 359.

  29. 29.

    Scobbie 1990, at 343.

  30. 30.

    Ibid., at 339–340.

  31. 31.

    Ibid., at 352.

  32. 32.

    Ibid., at 345.

  33. 33.

    Ibid., at 339, 346, 352.

  34. 34.

    Ibid., at 361–362.

  35. 35.

    Ibid., at 361.

  36. 36.

    Higgins 2004, at 1–4.

  37. 37.

    Lowe 2011, at 9–10, 12.

  38. 38.

    Jenks 1956, at 60.

  39. 39.

    ‘[T]he international jurist must not walk in the clouds; he must remain on the ground of what is realizable and tangible. It is better for international law to remain stationary than to fall in the hands of the impetuous and hot-headed reformer.’ Oppenheim 1908, at 318.

  40. 40.

    Hopkins 2002, at 1.

  41. 41.

    Lauterpacht 2007, at 15–16.

  42. 42.

    Higgins 2004, at 5.

  43. 43.

    Lowe 2011, at 11.

  44. 44.

    To recall Higgins’ description of Jennings, that though he was ‘content quietly to be as he was’, that ‘his qualities were such that he was famous the world over’. Higgins 2004, at 1.

  45. 45.

    Bedjaoui 2000, at 3.

  46. 46.

    Ibid., at 4.

  47. 47.

    Ibid., at 6.

  48. 48.

    Ibid., at 3.

  49. 49.

    Ibid., at 7.

  50. 50.

    Ibid., at 3–4.

  51. 51.

    Schlag 1997, at 433.

  52. 52.

    Bedjaoui 2000, at 26–27.

  53. 53.

    Ibid., at 1.

  54. 54.

    Herman and Chomsky 1988, at 1–36.

  55. 55.

    Kennedy 1999, at 13.

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  1. University of Manchester, Manchester, UK

    John D. Haskell

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  1. China Institute of Boundary and Ocean Studies (CIBOS), Wuhan University, Wuhan, China

    Otto Spijkers

  2. Faculty of Law, Transnational Legal Studies, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Wouter G. Werner

  3. Department of European and Economic Law, Groningen University, Groningen, The Netherlands

    Ramses A. Wessel

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Haskell, J.D. (2021). A Case in the Politics of Form: Yearbooks of International Law. In: Spijkers, O., Werner, W.G., Wessel, R.A. (eds) Netherlands Yearbook of International Law 2019. Netherlands Yearbook of International Law, vol 50. T.M.C. Asser Press, The Hague. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-6265-403-7_3

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