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17 Mich. J. Int'l L. 455 (1995-1996)
The Place of Law in Collective Security

handle is hein.journals/mjil17 and id is 465 raw text is: THE PLACE OF LAW IN COLLECTIVE SECURITY Martti Koskenniemi* I. REBIRTH OF COLLECTIVE SECURITY? ....................... 456 II. COLLECTIVE ACTION OR POWER POLICY? .................. 460 III. THE REALIST CRITIQUE OF COLLECTIVE SECURITY ......... 463 IV. THE LIMITS OF REALISM: THEORY V. ENGAGEMENT ........ 464 A. The Normative in the Empirical ........................ 465 B. The Engaged Perspective .............................. 470 V. THE WORK OF THE SECURITY COUNCIL .................... 481 VI. SECURITY AND LAW AS INSTITUTIONAL CULTURES ......... 488 It may seem anachronistic to suggest that law might have something to do with the high politics of international security. The period between the two world wars has, of course, been credited precisely by a mistaken reliance on such an idea. Confidence in the League of Nations' ability to deter aggression did not only, we are told by Realists of the post-war order, prove an academic error, it was positively harmful in directing attention away from the need to prepare for the inevitable aggression when it came. This is the understanding that most of us, as diplomats, political theorists, or lawyers, have cultivated through most of the past five de- cades. We have labelled belief in the ability of rules and institutions to deter aggression formalism, or even worse, legalism, highlighting its abstract, utopian character, its distance from the flesh and blood of the application of power by states to fulfill their interests. Only ten years ago, Stanley Hoffmann commented on the state of world order studies: Nobody seems to believe anymore in the chances of collective security; because of its constraining character, it is too contrary to the freedom of judgement and action implied by sovereignty; and ... it is in conflict with the imperatives of prudence in the nuclear * Professor of International Law at the University of Helsinki, Finland. LL.D. (Turku, Finland). Served with the Finnish Ministry for Foreign Affairs from 1978 to 1995; Legal Advisor to Finland's Permanent Mission to the United Nations from 1989 to 1990. This is a substantially revised version of a paper presented at the Conference The United Nations: Between Sovereignty and Global Governance, held at the University of La Trobe, Melbourne, in July, 1995.

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