White 1984

746 International and Comparative Law Quarterly [VOL.
33
claims and loss of certainty. The vexed question of the proper link between a
corporation and espousing State is tackled by a number of writers, with Fatouros
proposing the solution uf according a limited international status to multination-
al corporations so as to permit themselves to pursue directly their claims. Of
special interest is Gillian White's paper investigating defences open to the
debtor State against creditor claims and legal restraints on creditors from
pressing their claims.
This collection of essays is in no way a comprehensive study of State
responsibility; there is little discussion of criminal responsibility of States, the
position of international organisations or Calvo Clause arrangements to avoid
State responsibility. Nor is it a critical analysis of the work of the International
Law Commission, whether with Dr Garcia Amador as rapporteur from 1956 to
1961 or more recently Professor Ago; though Christenson, writing on the
doctrine of attribution, repeats criticisms that the ILC's work may prove a
dangerous instrument of pure abstraction and, in its neglect of the distinction
into public/private spheres of law underlying much of States' primary obligations
under existing treaties, may introduce politics into established legal norms.
Both books are handsomely printed with indices; no case list or bibliography
is supplied with either and in the second the footnotes are placed at the end of
each chapter. Each is recommended as making a useful contribution to the
subject of State responsibility.
HAZEL FOX
International Regimes. Edited by STEPHEN D. KRASNER. [Ithaca and London:

Cornell University Press. 1983. 368 pp. $29.95 (paperback: $9.95).]
THIS volume brings together essays on international regimes, defined by Krasner
as "principles, norms, rules and decision-making procedures around which actor
expectations converge in a given issue-area" (p.l), by political scientists and
international relations specialists. The essays first appeared in International
Organization, Vols.35 and 36. All the authors, with the exception of Susan
Strange, are American, and they come from either the liberal (Grotian)
tradition of international studies or the realist tradition. For the Grotians,
regimes are the normal state of affairs, whereas for realists regimes are hard to
create but may then assume a life of their own. Susan Strange contributes a
sparkling critique of the whole notion, arguing that the study of regimes is an
academic fad, a transient reaction to events of the 1970s which contributes little
to our knowledge of international society; that the notion is imprecise and
value-biased; that it distorts our views by overemphasising the static elements in
world politics, and that it is narrowly based on a State-centric paradigm. She
adds that attention to regimes leads to a focus upon the status quo and "tends to
exclude hidden agendas and to leave unheard or unheeded complaints, whether
they come from the under-privileged, the disfranchised or the unborn, about the
way the system works" (p.338).
Where does international law come in? Donald Puchala and Raymond
Hopkins in "Lessons from Inductive Analysis" tell us that a regime is an
attitudinal phenomenon. Behaviour follows from adherence to principles.
Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Gothenburg University Library, on 24 Jan 2019 at 15:04:05, subject to the Cambridge Core
terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1093/iclqaj/33.3.746
JULY 1984] Book Reviews 747
norms and rules, which legal codes sometimes reflect. But regimes exist mainly
as the subjective understandings and expectations of participants (p.62). Robert
Keohane, in "The Demand for International Regimes", inquires why there
seems to be such a demand. Regimes facilitate the conclusion of specific
international agreements by providing a framework of norms, rules and
procedures for negotiation. Why then do States not proceed directly to the
making of specific agreements? Is there a need for an intermediate framework?
He suggests that regimes may enable agreements to be reached, yielding net
benefits, that would not be possible on an ad hoc basis. Given the absence of
world government, there is no clear legal framework establishing liability for
actions; he also stresses the imperfections of information in international
negotiations, and positive transaction costs. Regimes can help with all these
defects but Keohane then focuses entirely on the information and transaction-
costs aspects, since "regimes do not establish binding and enforceable legal
liabilities in any strict or ultimately reliable sense" (p. 154). This kind of
language repels your reviewer, and it was a relief to turn to the more concrete
and, to her mind, informative case-studies in Part 4 of the book. Here are meaty
contributions on international trade and monetary regimes and regulations from
John Ruggie, Charles Lipson, Jock Finlayson and Mark Zacher, and Benjamin
Cohen, with a slighter piece on security regimes from Robert Jervis. Students of
the GATT, non-tariff barriers, voluntary export restraints, preferences for
developing countries, and dispute settlement procedures in international trade
relations would find much to interest them in the analyses by Lipson, "The
Transformation of Trade: Sources and Effects of Regime Change", and by
Finlayson and Zacher on "The GATT and the Regulation of Trade Barriers".
These authors observe that the consensus on the right of States to act to prevent
market disruption remains strong, but that there are serious differences on the
conditions under which safeguard actions are legitimate and on the degree of
multilateral control over them. Parallel or very similar statements could be
made about the developing opinio juris in other areas of change in international
relations and law, for example, the content of the EEZ "regime", or the extent
of a State's right to take unilateral extraterritorial action against serious actual
or imminent pollution damage, let alone the right to use force in self-defence.
The authors' evaluation of the utility of the GATT dispute settlement
procedures is illuminating. The evolving GATT code has clearly constrained
national policies, despite the many violations of particular rules. The GATT
norms were largely the product of the wishes of the strong trading nations, but
the regime once established "may well limit the policy freedom of those who
originally created it" (p.313).
This is not a book which I would strongly recommend to international
lawyers, but there are insights into the causes and effects of changes in
international behaviour and in institutional or less formal arrangements. Susan
Strange proposes an alternative methodology, inquiring into what are the key
bargains that have been, or could be, made, and how they have affected
outcomes. Such an examination would "reveal rather more about the real levers
of power" than attention to regimes, and would also leave more open the
question of what values a pattern of bargaining has produced. We would be able
to see beyond the limits set by governments and their perceptions of national
748 International and Comparative Law Quarterly [VOL. 33
interest, to glimpse interests of other groups, classes and generations. She urges
that equal attention to be paid to the question "How to achieve change?" as to
"How to keep order?" (p.354).
GILLIAN WHITE
Guirilla et Droit Humanitaire. By MICHEL VEUTHEY. 2nd ed. [Geneva:

International Committee of the Red Cross. 1983. 451 pp. US$5.]
THIS is a welcome paperback re-issue of a book first published in hardback in
1976. It tackles a subject of hideous moral difficulty and legal complexity—
namely the whole range of laws of war-types issues raised in the kind of guerilla
conflicts which have arisen in the post-1945 era.
The application of the laws of war to armed conflicts marked by the use of
guerilla warfare raises several categories of problem. First, there is the question
of the scope of application of such provisions as the 1907 Hague rules of land
warfare, or the 1949 Geneva Conventions; these accords relate to wars between
recognised States, and the extent of their applicability in situations which have
more of an internal character (at least in the eyes of the incumbent government)
is often disputed. Second, even if the laws of war are accepted as applicable,
what is the status of the guerilla fighter? Should he be treated as a prisoner of
war, even if he has failed to meet some of the criteria spelt out at the Hague and
Geneva? Or is he a civilian, or what? Third, even if this problem can be
resolved, there remains the frightful historical fact that guerilla and counter-
insurgency operations alike tend to blur distinctions between combatants and
non-combatants; what is worse, such conflicts are often marked by atrocities.
Dr Veuthey addresses all these and many other issues in a competent and
practical manner. He refers extensively to State (and, one might add, non-State)
practice, as well as to the tidier and more formal world of treaty provisions. He
was a member of the ICRC delegation to the 1974-77 diplomatic conference
which adopted 1977 Geneva Protocols I and II, so he is well aware of diplomatic
nuances and latest developments of the matters at hand.
One of the book's most valuable features is its extensive documentation of the
policies adopted by guerilla or national liberation movements on laws or war
issues. Dozens of cases are cited in which general statements accepting the laws
of war were made, or specific orders given concerning such matters as the
treatment of captured enemy prisoners. Such documentation is used by Veuthey
to buttress his central argument, surely justified, that there is a need for a
convergence between the humanitarian and the realist approach so far as the
issues raised by guerilla warfare are concerned.
Inevitably, there are many grounds for criticism. It is not helpful to the reader
that the references to the 1977 Geneva Protocols are still to drafts with outdated
article numbers, not to the agreements as signed; and there are some optimistic
and now dated statements about those protocols. The discussion of some issues,
including the legality or otherwise of the use of nuclear weapons, is less well
informed than most of the work. In some passages Veuthey is a little inclined to
down-play the worst consequences of guerilla warfare: for example, he says that
terrorism succeeded in Palestine and Cyprus against the British, but he is not
quite so specific about its long-term corrosive effects, which have been only too
evident in these two cases. Some of his references are inaccurate, and others are

White 1984

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

White 1984

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

White 1984

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

746 International and Comparative Law Quarterly [VOL.

International Regimes. Edited by STEPHEN D. KRASNER. [Ithaca and London:

Guirilla et Droit Humanitaire. By MICHEL VEUTHEY. 2nd ed. [Geneva:

You might also like