International Law Theory & Sovereignty

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Abstractions about the theoretical foundations of international law and its relationship to states, covering the monism-dualism debate over domestic and international law, doctrines of territorial and colonial legal authority (Discovery Doctrine, Standard of Civilisation), and procedural concepts like Entry into Force and Law Without the State.

5 abstractions in this family — domain-specific abstractions that sit near one another in structural-signature space (k-means over structural-signature embeddings). Each is shown with its short description.

• Discovery Doctrine — The discovery doctrine, or doctrine of discovery, is a disputed interpretation of international law during the Age of Discovery, introduced into United States municipal law by the US Supreme Court justice John Marshall in Johnson v.
• Entry into Force — In law, coming into force or entry into force (also called commencement) is the process by which legislation, regulations, treaties and other legal instruments come to have legal force and effect.
• Law without the state — Law without the state (also called transnational stateless law, stateless law, or private legal orderings) is law made primarily outside of the power of a state.
• Monism and dualism in international law — The terms monism and dualism are used to describe two different theories of the relationship between international law and domestic law.
• Standard of Civilisation — Scholars came to recognise that speaking of civilisation largely functioned as "an elusive cultural marker than achievable legal standard." Japanese legal scholar Tsurataro Senga noted that when Europeans speak of civilisation or civilised states, they are largely doing so from their own subjective worldviews.