Changing Norms and Practices in International Peace and Security Law

This inter­disci­plinary and colla­bora­tive pro­ject ex­plores the changing norms and practices in inter­national peace and security law from an Inter­national Law (IL) and an Inter­national Re­lations (IR) per­spective. The “crisis” of the inter­national (liberal) order has become a buzz­word. This in­cludes the corner­stone of peace and security law, the pro­hibition on the use of force in article 2(4) in the UN Charter. While this norm has been de­clared dead several times, it con­tinues to shape inter­national politics. This pro­ject con­tributes to this debate in two ways: On the one hand, a joint publi­cation project with Christian Marxsen, Max Planck In­stitute for Com­parative Public Law and Inter­national Law, links IL and IR approaches to develop a heuristic for studying the con­tested norms of peace and security. This project brings to­gether an inter­disciplinary group of scholars who shed light on the con­testation, change and potential erosion of several norms in peace and security law. On the other hand, this project studies two central inter­national prac­tices in peace and security law: de­claring war and writing letters to the UN Security Coun­cil to notify it about the use of force in self-defence under article 51 of the UN Charter. Drawing on inter­national practice theories, the socio­logy of law and the socio­logy of deviance, this project traces (1) how the article 51 letters have re­placed de­clarations of war; (2) the diplomacy of these letters; and (3) their nor­ma­tive im­plications.