Humanity's Law

by Ruti G. Teitel

In Humanity's Law, renowned legal scholar Ruti Teitel offers a powerful account of one of the central transformations of the post-Cold War era: the profound normative shift in the international legal order from prioritizing state security to protecting human security. As she demonstrates, courts, tribunals, and other international bodies now rely on a humanity-based framework to assess the rights and wrongs of conflict; to determine whether and how to intervene; and to impose accountability and responsibility. Cumulatively, the norms represent a new law of humanity that spans the law of war, international human rights, and international criminal justice. Teitel explains how this framework is reshaping the discourse of international politics with a new approach to the management of violent conflict.

Teitel maintains that this framework is most evidently at work in the jurisprudence of the tribunals-international, regional, and domestic-that are charged with deciding disputes that often span issues of internal and international conflict and security. The book demonstrates how the humanity law framework connects the mandates and rulings of diverse tribunals and institutions, addressing the fragmentation of global legal order.

Comprehensive in approach, Humanity's Law considers legal and political developments related to violent conflict in Europe, North America, South America, and Africa. This interdisciplinary work is essential reading for anyone attempting to grasp the momentous changes occurring in global affairs as the management of conflict is increasingly driven by the claims and interests of persons and peoples, and state sovereignty itself is transformed.

Genres: Law

320 pages, Hardcover

First published September 9, 2011

Reviews

[kaelan · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ruti Teitel's Humanity's Law is a confusing, labyrinthine, overwhelming and often aggravating work. While its arguments are rather obscure, its central thesis appears to be as follows: the sphere of international law is experiencing the rise of a new legal regime, such that the

normative foundations of the international order have shifted from an emphasis on state security [...] to a focus on human security: the security of persons and peoples.

This is a descriptive thesis, not a normative one. Yet it seems that many of Teitel's readers have missed this crucial point, with one academic reviewer going so far as to call her book "more ideology than history." To be fair, however, Teitel does very little to substantiate her descriptive claims. Rather, her argumentative strategy consists mostly of enumerating an encyclopaedia's worth of legal case studies, which she then proceeds to explain "through the humanity law lens."

There are two problems here. First, this strategy makes for excessively dull reading—a problem which is exacerbated by the almost embarrassing atrociousness of Teitel's prose. Second, it does nothing to defend her view against rival theories. (By way of analogy, even though astrology is able to account for a wide range of phenomena, that in itself doesn't make it a veracious or even plausible theory.) Indeed, one should not forget that Teitel is positing an entirely new species of international law—i.e., humanity law—which she claims exists over and above the set of human rights law, humanitarian law and international criminal law. Suffice to say, Teitel's isn't the most ontologically parsimonious of views.

Granted, this doesn't automatically invalidate her theory. But at the very least, she owes us far more argumentation than she provides in this book.

[Ralph Orr · Rating 3 out of 5]

To glean the most from this book, it helps to be familiar with the broad concepts and issues of international law. For a layperson like me, who reads extensively in world affairs, this book may be a little over one's head. Yet the subject itself is vital to understand the present currents in international affairs.

As Teital explains, prior to WW II, international law primarily concerned itself with affairs between states. Even the rule-of-war governed how states were to behave towards each other and their combatants not to peoples within their own borders. With the war crimes trials following the War, that began to change. Rulers were no longer immune from prosecution. Individuals could be held accountable by other states and (both national and international)courts for actions those rulers or states took against people living within their control.

Gradually a framework arose that recognizes that peoples, groups and individuals both within states and those who transcend states and even the stateless have rights as humans, the violation of which can and should bring punishments. This is humanity's law, and thus is quite different than historic international law.

While controversial, it has been a major reason why human rights and democracy have spread in recent decades. It is also being used to counter terrorism. Teital cites many case examples, some familiar others less so. This trend is largely uncommented upon in the popular press, but has received much academic legal discussion and debate. One cannot really understand foreign affairs and modern diplomacy without considering these trends and the legal, diplomatic and charitable institutions that support them. Largely a Western phenomenon, it nonetheless pressures dictatorships, criminal gangs, and other anti-democratic institutions around the world.

[Ron Moss · Rating 5 out of 5]

This the most optimistic book I have read in a long time. it shows that, despite all the repression and disparities of wealth around the world, we have made a lot of progress towards recognizing the sovereignty of individuals and that the rights of individual Humans take precedence over state sovereignty. I wish the concepts discussed in the book were being discussed in the current political "debates" in the US and that the principles were fully implemented under US law. The tension between state and individual sovereignty certainly calls into question the conclusion in the current issue of Foreign Affairs that all major political/economic issues have been resolved. History is still not over, and "Humanity's Law convinced me we are moving in the right direction. We must still overcome those who still believe the slogan that appeared over the entrance to one of the German concentration camps that said, "Every Man for Himself.". Unfortunately such hold much power, since power is all they ever sought, but the tide of History is against them, we have made much progress and one day we will overcome.

[Charles · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lots of interesting work to clarify a developing set of legal practices. It's a little too enthusiastic about the dialectic possibilities for this 'new' strain of law, and a little bit too dismissive of the continuing crucial importance of states.