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88 Nordic J. Int'l L. 1 (2019)

handle is hein.journals/nordic88 and id is 1 raw text is: NORDIC NORDIC JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL LAW JOURNAL BRILL (2019) 1-8 I N NA NIJHOFF brill.com/nord Introduction: An Anatomy of Autonomy Guest Editors Jan Klabbers Professor of International Law, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland Panos Koutrakos Professor of EU Law, Jean Monnet Professor of EU Law, City, University of London, London, UK I Introduction Western thought is dominated by the dynamics of the whole and its parts. Sociologists have distinguished between community and society, the former denoting a collectivity, the latter rather autonomous co-existence. Political philosophers distinguish between community and individualism or, some- times, between universitas and societas, denoting much the same.' And the same basic tension props up in legal discussions, for instance Robert Cover's well-known juxtaposition of nomos and narrative2 or, closer to the ground, in discussions on the tension between individual and collective human rights, or between statehood and the right to self-determination of distinct peoples inhabiting the state.3 Yet, as well-established as the tradition of thinking in terms of the whole and its parts may be, it is rarely investigated whether this has given rise to some legal principle or other, perhaps in part precisely because of this regular ten- sion: if justice demands catering for both the collective and its parts (as may well be presumed), then taking sides in the form of a legal principle becomes difficult to justify. Both in morals and in law, statehood has its appeal, as does 1 For a useful overview see Shlomo Avineri and Avner de-Shalit (eds.), Comm unitarianism and Individualism (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1992); the distinction between universitas and societas is central to Michael Oakeshott, On Human Conduct (Clarendon, Oxford 1975). 2 See Robert Cover, 'The Supreme Court, 1982 Term - Foreword: Nomos and Narrative, 97 Har- vard Law Review (1983) P. 4. 3 The literature is voluminous; see, e.g., Antonio Cassese, Self-determination ofPeoples:A Legal Appraisal (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1995). © KONINKLIJKE BRILL NV, LEIDEN, 2019 DOI 10.1163/15718107-08810001

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