The Notion of Progress in International Law Discourse PROEFSCHRIFT ter verkrijging van de graad van Doctor aan de Universiteit Leiden, op gezag van de Rector Magnificus prof. mr. P.F. van der Heijden, volgens besluit van het College voor Promoties te verdedigen op dinsdag 4 november 2008 klokke 13.45 uur door Thomas Skouteris geboren te Athene, Griekenland in 1971
iv Promotiecommissie: Promotor: Co-Promotor: Referent: Overige leden: prof. dr. C.J.R. Dugard prof. dr. D. Kennedy (Brown University, USA) prof. dr. M. Koskenniemi (University of Helsinki, Finland) prof. dr. N.J. Schrijver prof. dr. H.M.T. Holtmaat prof. dr. M. Craven (SOAS, United Kingdom) prof. dr. M.T.T.A. Brus (Rijksuniversiteit Groningen) prof. mr. P.A. Nollkaemper (Universiteit van Amsterdam) prof. dr. W.G. Werner (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam)
v Acknowledgments Although this thesis was completed in the course of the past three years, it concludes a process that started over a decade ago in the context of my postgraduate studies, research fellowships, and teaching in different places. I feel indebted to several institutions and persons that continued to believe in me during the years. They provided me with the intellectual, institutional, and personal support that enabled this difficult journey come to a felicitous end. I hope that I will be forgiven for not being able to mention them all in the following lines. I begin by expressing my gratitude to the Dissertation Program of the T.M.C. Asser Institute and the European Law Research Center of Harvard Law School. Both institutions made early years of research possible by providing financial support and exceptionally stimulating environments. The Faculty of Law of Leiden University has been supportive by granting me a seven-month sabbatical leave in 2006 and by allowing me to spend part of my working-time on completing the thesis thereafter. Sincere thanks go to my colleagues at the Asser Dissertation Program (1997-2000); the Graduate Program of Harvard Law School (1997-1999); the network of the Foundation for New Research in International Law (FNRIL); my fellow Editors of the Leiden Journal of International Law; and the attendants of the various conferences and workshops of Critical international law at Birkbeck and elsewhere. They are the peer community that fuelled my desire to keep writing and continue participating in joint intellectual projects. My love goes to Juan Amaya Castro, Martin Björklund, Claudio da Silva Correa, Eric Durrer, Vangelis Herouveim, Florian Hoffmann, Orsalia Lambropoulou, Frédéric Mégret, Hélène Ruiz Fabri, Bruno Simma, Panos Triantafyllou, Nicholas Tsagourias, and Michael Vagias for their friendship. I will forever be indebted to Frank Turner for his companionship and for being there, in times of joy and grief. No words here can express my thanks to my mother, Eleftheria, my father, Michalis, and to Riikka Koskenmäki for their love. My gratitude to them is boundless. T.S., Cairo, September 2008
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Acknowledgments Table of Contents Table of Contents vii v vii Chapter 1 1 Introduction 1 1.1. General Synopsis 1 1.2. The Object of Study: Progress and International Law Debates 2 1.3. The Problem: Progress as a Notion that Speaks Itself 9 1.4. Critique and Theses: Progress as the Product of Narratives 16 1.5. Approach, Method, Outline 21 Chapter 2 29 Case Study #1 29 2.1. Introduction 29 2.2. The Narrative of Absolutism v. Democracy 34 2.3. The Function of the Vocabulary of Progress in the Argument 45 2.4. A Vocabulary Situated 51 2.5. Bourgeois Modernization and the Writings of Stelios Seferiades 58 2.6. The International Lawyer as Organic Intellectual 72 2.7. Conclusions 76 Chapter 3 79 Case Study #2 79 3.1. Introduction 79 3.2. Interwar Discourse on the Sources of International Law and the Quest for Reconstruction 83 3.3. Tropes of Reconstruction 88 3.4. Article 38 as Progress 102 3.5. The Vocabulary of Progress of the Sources 107 3.6. Digression: Sources in Contemporary textbooks 117 3.7. The Vocabulary as an (Un)Stable Discursive Structure 128 3.8. Conclusion 132
viii Chapter 4 135 Case Study #3 135 4.1. Introduction 135 4.2. The New Tribunalism 139 4.2.1. Tribunals and pre-1980s International Law 139 4.2.2. Facts and trends of Proliferation 144 4.2.3. The New Form of Engagement 147 4.3. Two Vocabularies of Progress 152 4.3.1. The lawyer-as-architect 153 4.3.2. The Lawyer-as-Social-Engineer 167 4.4. (Un)Stable Vocabularies 175 4.4.1. Necessity 176 4.4.2. Unity 178 4.4.3. Progress 179 4.5. Conclusion 183 Chapter 5 185 Conclusions 185 5.1. Introduction 185 5.2. Progress as the Product of Narratives 186 5.3. Progress Narratives as Politics 189 5.4. Discourse Analysis as Action 193 Bibliography 197 Books / Articles 197 Reports / Cases 236 Curriculum Vitae 239 Samenvatting 241