56 international law

Since the law now plays a much deeper role in society with the increase
ingovernmentalintervention,impetushasbeengiventolegaltheoriesthat
reflect this growing involvement. The law, particularly in the United States, is
seen as a tool to effect changes in society, and realist doctrine underlines
this. It emphasizes that it is community values and policy decisions that
determine the nature of the law, and accordingly, the role of the judge is
that much more important. He is no longer an interpreter of a body of
formal legal rules, but should be seen more as an active element in making
decisions about public policy.
This means that to understand the operation of the law, one has to consider
the character of the particular society, its needs, and its values. Law thus
becomes a dynamic process and has to be studied in the context of society.
andnotmerelyasacollectionoflegalrulescapableofbeingcomprehended
on their own. The social sciences have led the way in this reinterpretation.
of society, and their influence has been very marked on the behavioral
method of looking at the law, not only in terms of general outlook but also
in providing the necessary tools to dissect society and discover the way
it operates and the direction in which it is heading. The interdisciplinary
nature of the studies in question was emphasized, utilizing all the social
sciences, including politics, economics, and philosophy. 42 In particular
the use of the scientific method, such as obtaining data and quantitative
analysis has been very much in evidence.
Behaviorism has divided the field of international relations into
basically two studies, the first being a consideration of foreign policy.
techniques and the reasons why one particular course of action is
preferred to another, and the second constituting the international system
analysis approach. 43 This emphasizes the interaction of the various
players on the international stage and the effects of such mutual pressures
upon both the system and the participants. More than that, it examines
42
Note Barkun’s comment that ‘the past theoretical approaches of the legal profession have
involved logical manipulations of a legal corpus more often than the empirical study of
patterns of human behavior’, Law Without Sanctions, New Haven, 1968, p. 3. See also
R. A. Falk, ‘New Approaches to the Study of International Law’, in New Approaches to
International Relations (ed. M. A. Kaplan), New York, 1968, pp. 357–80, and J. Frankel,
Contemporary International Theory and the Behavior of States, London, 1973, pp. 21–2.
43
See, e.g., C. A. McClelland, Theory and the International System, New York, 1966; M. A.
Kaplan, System and Process in International Politics, New York, 1964; M. A. Kaplan and
N. Katzenbach, The Political Foundations of International Law, New York, 1961, and R. A.
Falk and C. Black, The Future of International Legal Order, Princeton, 1969. See also A.
Kiss and D. Shelton, ‘Systems Analysis of International Law: A Methodological Inquiry’,
17 Netherlands YIL, 1986, p. 45.