A Juridical Paradigm for Classifying International Law in the Foreign Policy Process: The Middle East War, 1967
![handle is hein.journals/vajint10 and id is 354 raw text is: A JURIDICAL PARADIGM FOR
CLASSIFYING INTERNATIONAL LAW
IN THE FOREIGN POLICY PROCESS:
THE MIDDLE EAST WAR, 1967
STUART STEPHAN MALAWER *
I. Introduction: the Role of International Law in the
Foreign Policy Process as a Field of Inquiry.
The relationship between international law and national foreign
policy has long posed a perplexing problem for scholars. Two com-
mentators, Stanley Hoffman I and Louis Henkin,2 have recently ana-
lyzed the influence of international law on the foreign policy process
from different critical viewpoints. Stanley Hoffman considers inter-
national law in the national decision-making process and concludes
that international law is a [t] ool of policy ... [which] can be useful
for the protection or enhancement of a position .... -3 Hoffman further
states, Policy-makers use law as a way of putting pressure on an
opponent ... : [1] aw serves as a focal point, as the tool for interna-
tionalizing a national interest .... -4
It is clear that Professor Hoffman feels international law is an
instrument of state policy rather than a guide for state action.6 He
is convinced international law plays a minor part in the foreign policy
process because the ambiguity of international law allows policy-
makers in an emergency to act as if international law were irrelevant
-as if it were neither a restraint nor a guide.6 His analysis fails to
make explicit, however, the possibility of international law serving as
a restraint or a factor in the formulation of foreign policy, rather
than as a mere tool or instrument in the execution of foreign policy.
Moreover, he only considers international law in foreign policy crises
situations which involve the use or threat of force, or the consequences
of a resort to force.
Instructor, Univ. of Pennsylvania, Dept. of Political Science, and Consultant,
Foreign Policy Research Institute; J.D., Cornell Law School; Certificate, Hague
Academy of International Law; M.A., Univ. of Pennsylvania (International
Relations).
1. Hoffman, Introduction to L. SCHEINMAN & D. WILKINSON, INTERNATIONAL
LAW AND POLITICAL CRISIS: AN ANALYTIC CASEBOOK (1968).
2. L. HENKIN, How NATIONS BEHAVE: LAW AND FOREIGN POLICY (1968).
3. Hoffman, supra note 1, at xiii.
4. Id. at xiv.
5. Id.
6. Id. at xv.](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/vajint10&div=26&collection=journals&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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A Juridical Paradigm for Classifying International Law in the Foreign Policy Process: The Middle East War, 1967
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