From Nuremburg to Kosovo: The Morality of Illegal International Legal Reform
Author(s)
Buchanan, Allen
Abstract
My chief aim in this article has been to identify, and to begin the task of developing a solution for, an important but neglected problem in the non-ideal part of normative theory of international law: the justification of illegal acts aimed at morally improving the system. I have also shown the inadequacy of a simple and common response to the problem–the charge that such acts are impermissible because they are inconsistent with a sincere commitment to the rule of law or betray a willingness to act without moral authority by imposing purely personal or subjective views of morality. By exploring the complex array of factors that are relevant to determining whether an illegal act of reform is morally justified, I hope to have vindicated the concerns of those such as Watson and Rubin that such illegalities bear a serious burden of justification, while at the same time showing that to reject illegal reform out of hand is to fail to appreciate the complexities of the issue. This seemingly narrow inquiry has had a valuable result of much greater significance: facing the problem of the justification of illegal reform head-on, rather than pretending that reform efforts are legal by stretching the concept of legality, forces us to probe more deeply into the nature of the international legal system and the conditions for its legitimacy.
