The Preamble to the UN charter is quite clear—the goal of international law is to “live together in peace” and to “employ international machinery for the promotion of economic … advancement of all peoples.” The Preamble of the 1899 Hague Convention, which established the first multilateral dispute settlement system, declares its purpose as declaring principles “on which are based the security of states and welfare of peoples.” I will put it even more plainly. The sentiment was captured well by the title of Francis Fukayama’s 1992 book: “The End of History and the Last Man.” Fukayama captured a widespread feeling that History (with a capital “H”) had turned the page on some of the problems of the past after the collapse of the Soviet Union. He emphasized that in such cases “[w]here there is no law, a submission to arbitration or to judicial decision is an appeal, not to the rule of law, but to the unknown opinions or predilections of the men who happen to be selected to decide.” In other words, the possibility of combining weak substantive law with strong procedural law in the international sphere devolves into political gamesmanship regarding who can secure control of international institutions and dispute settlement bodies as opposed to who is in the right and who is in the wrong.
Author: March 1, 2026
Published at: 2026-03-01 00:00:00
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