Unit 12 The International Law Key terms

Adjudication - A conflict-resolution procedure in which a third party makes a binding decision about a dispute in an institutional tribunal.

Arbitration - A conflict-resolution procedure in which a third party makes a binding decision between disputants through a temporary ruling board created for that ruling.

Conciliation - A conflict-resolution procedure in which a third party assists both parties to a dispute but proposes no solution.

Crimes against humanity - A category of activities, made illegal at the Nuremberg war crime trials, condemning states that abuse human rights.

De facto recognition - A government's acknowledgment of the factual existence of another state or government short of full recognition.

De jure recognition - A government's formal, legal recognition of another sovereign government or state

Diplomatic immunity - The legal doctrine that gives ambassadors immunity from the domestic laws of the countries where their embassies are located.

Diplomatic recognition - The formal legal acceptance of a state's official status as an independent- country.

Divine right of kings - The realist doctrine that because kings are sovereign they have the right to rule their subjects authoritatively and are not accountable to the public because their rule is ordained by God.

Extraterritoriality - The legal doctrine that allows states to maintain jurisdiction over their embassies in other states.

Good offices - The offering by a third party of a location for discussion among disputants.

ICJ (International Court of Justice) –known as the World Court . A judicial court of the United Nations which replaced the Cour Permanente de Justice in 1945 and meets at The Hague. It consists of 15 people elected by the General Assembly and the Security Council.

Mediation - A conflict-resolution procedure in which a third party offers a nonbinding solution to the disputants.

Neoliberal institutionalism - The recent theoretical effort to explain how peace and prosperity instead of war might be created through law, global governance, and liberal democracies' cooperation to engineer international change.

Neutrality - The legal doctrine that provides rights and duties for states who remain nonaligned with adversaries during wartime.

Nonintervention - The principle prohibiting one state from interfering in another state's internal affairs

Positivist legal theory - A theory that stresses states' customs as the most important source of law.

Preemption - A quick first-strike attack that seeks in self-defense to defeat an adversary before it can undertake military action or can organize a retaliatory response.

Private international law - Law pertaining to routinized transnational intercourse between or among states as well as nonstate actors.

Public international law - Law pertaining to government-to-government relations.

Realism - The theoretical tradition arguing that sovereign states are the most important global actors and should be unrestrained by law, principles of justice, or supranational organizations when making decisions regarding war and peace

Revolution in military affairs (RMA) - The goal of seeking to increase military capabilities and effectiveness with new technology that does not rely on weapons of mass destruction

Self-help - The principle that in anarchy actors must rely on themselves

Sovereign equality - The principle that states are legally entitled to equal protection under international law.

Sovereignty - The legal doctrine that states have supreme authority to govern their internal affairs and manage their foreign relations with other states and IGOs.

Statehood - The legal criteria by which a country and its government become a state in the international community.

Structural violence - The condition defined by Norwegian peace researcher Johan Galtung as the harm and injury caused by the global system's unregulated structure, which effectively allows strong states to victimize weak states that cannot protect themselves.