Comments on Response Paper

Paper I : Rosalyn Higgins on The Nature and Function of International Law

The author has failed to characterize the essence of the reading and cull out the important points
from the reading. The author missed the point that Higgins not only focuses on Authority to be
only source of obligation in International Law, rather Higgins is discussing that both power and
control are equivalent to authority in International Law. Author’s disagreement with Higgins on
her policy science approach to legal process seems unfounded as International Law governs States,
a policy directed approach helps the states in case of ambiguity or in case of an impasse at arriving
at a decision. Author dissents from Higgins by saying that international law as a normative order
is regarded as law due to mutual grant of legitimacy rather than having a sense of obligation. I
think normative order of the international law has more to do with sense of obligation but for some
states, in terms of Third World at least third world nations follow international law because it has
been imposed upon them and they in terms feel that they are obligated to act in certain way.

Paper II : Martii Koskenniemi on The Histories of International Law – Dealing with

Eurocentrism

The author instead of responding to Koskenniemi’ s paper seems to build upon his theory
Eurocentrism and propound what could be done with that theory and how should we look
Eurocentrism in Indian context. Author moves away from the notion of Eurocentrism in the context
of International Law to the domestic law of India, which is not the scope of the paper by
Koskenniemi. Author has made a statement that Koskenniemi who talks about Eurocentrism has
himself adopted the European vocabulary and contributed to European telos, but it seems to be
sweeping statement and has not further elaborated as to why he thinks paper by Koskenniemi is
itself marred by European vocabulary. In my opinion though language, education, vocabulary in
expressing oneself may be influenced by European ideas but we can still use those ideas to form a
critique of European ideas. It seems author has not attempted to grasp the idea in its simplicity
and tried to make response paper more complex by substituting the words of Koskenniemi with
similarly complex words. The response paper seems to be misguided with the theory of
Eurocentrism by applying the concept to all the principles emanating from International Law.