Fault Lines of International Legitimacy

Fault Lines of International Legitimacy deals with the following questions: What are the features and functions of legitimacy in the international realm? How does international legitimacy, as exemplified in particular by multilateral norms, organizations, and policies, change over time? What role does the international distribution of power and its evolution have in the establishment and transformation of legitimacy paradigms? To what extent do democratic values account for the growing importance of legitimacy and the increasing difficulty of achieving it at the international and the national level? One of the central messages of the book is that, although the search for international legitimacy is an elusive endeavor, there is no alternative to it if we want to respond to the intertwined demands of justice and security and make them an integral and strategic part of international relations.

Acknowledgments; Contributors; Introduction Jean-Marc Coicard; Part I. From the History and Structure of International Legitimacy to Fault Lines in Contemporary International Politics: 1. Legitimacy, across borders and over time Jean-Marc Coicard; 2. Deconstructing international legitimacy Jean-Marc Coicard; 3. The evolution of international order and fault lines of international legitimacy Jean-Marc Coicard; 4. Intervention in a 'divided world': axes of legitimacy Nathaniel Berman; 5. From Berlin to Bonn to Baghdad: a space for infinite justice Vasuki Nesiah; Part II. The UN Security Council: Expression, Venue, and Promoter of International Legitimacy?: 6. Legal deliberation and argumentation in international decision making Ian Johnstone; 7. The UN Security Council, regional arrangements, and peacekeeping operations Nishkala Suntharalingam; 8. The Security Council's alliance of gender legitimacy: the symbolic capital of Resolution 1325 Dianne Otto; Part III. Legitimacy of International Interventions and Hierarchy of International Rights: 9. Cosmopolitan militaries and cosmopolitan force Lorraine Elliott; 10. Sovereignty, rights, and armed intervention: a dialectical perspective B. S. Chimni; Part IV. In Search of New Forms of International Legitimacy: Between Power and Principles: 11. Determining how the legitimacy of intervention is discussed: a case study of international territorial administration Ralph Wilde; 12. The legitimacy of economic sanctions: an analysis of humanitarian exemptions of sanctions regimes and the right to minimum sustenance Jun Matsukuma; Conclusion: the legitimacies of international law Hilary Charlesworth; Index.

This 2010 book asks what are the features and functions of legitimacy in the international realm and examines how this legitimacy, as exemplified in particular by multilateral norms, organizations, and policies, change over time. It argues that the demands of justice and security make the search for international legitimacy integral to international relations.