One of my interventions at the Eleventh Session of the International Studies Conference held in Prague in 1938, the record of which was published by the International Institute of Intellectual Co-operation as University Teaching of International Relations, edited by Alfred Zimmern, at pages 266 to 269.
“I propose to try keeping to the question on the agenda: the relation between the teaching of international law and the teaching of international relations. And it will perhaps be well that I should aim at being provocative rather than conciliatory, instead of saying that there are some points on which I am not wholly in agreement with previous speakers. I say that I think there are some fallacies in the air.
The first fallacy I want to challenge is the one perpetrated by Sir Alfred Zimmern at the very beginning, namely, that international law rested on the presupposition of the sovereign State, whereas international relations regarded that as a “relative” conception, and of doubtful value. I do not think that international lawyers should be saddled with the blame or the credit for the prevalence of the conception of sovereignty. It is not the views of international lawyers surely, but the prevalence of that idea in the w0rld, which should be our starting point. Sovereignty is the presupposition of statesmanship and diplomacy, and therefore of international law – and not vice versa. Any study of international relations which leaves out of account the prevalence of that presupposition must necessarily be “off the rails” from the start in its attempt to appreciate the world as it is today. We may not like this position, but Sir Alfred Zimmem himself is the enemy of wishful thinking, and, as Mr. Brooks Emeny told us this morning, we still live in a Great-Power world, a world, moreover, in which not only the Great Powers but also the small ones make a good deal of their sovereignty. I, personally, am rather glad of it, because this persistence of the superstition that there is something sacred about their sovereignty is almost the only protection the small Powers have in the world today.
It is the recognised prevalence of that idea in present-day international practice, including the practice of the League of Nations, that must be the starting point of any realistic study of international relations. I do not mean by this that we must necessarily confine international relations to the study of dealings between States if by those words I am to be understood as limiting the scope of the subject of international relations. On the contrary, I would say that, under the rubric international relations, we should study not merely the formal relations between States but also everything else under the sun which may have any relevance thereto.
Other fallacies to which I would never accuse anybody in this room of having subscribed, but which may be mentioned in passing, include, for example, the idea that international lawyers create international law. I do not .suppose there is anybody here who believes that, but there have been some, even international lawyers, who entertained the idea. They have persisted in the illusion that they had something more than a suggestive influence in the process of changing international law. Let us not fall into a confusion between the question of “technique legislative”, mentioned by Professor Guggenheim, and the question of “politique legislative” which is another thing altogether. Technique legislative, I admit, is par excellence the business of lawyers. In England it is the domain of what is called the parliamentary draftsman. He is a lawyer. He helps to settle the terms of legislation. But it is very far from being his business to say what the content of the legislation ought to be.
Neither is it easy for me to accept the opinion that the professor of international law is, by his calling, in the nature of a missionary. I hope every man of goodwill is a missionary, in the world as we have it today; but professors of international law, in their quality as exponents and leaders of a highly technical subject-matter, should proceed rather in the spirit of science. Accordingly they will present legal issues as legal issues, showing how they are distinct from, albeit related to, the true interpretation of the now famous remark of Professor Reuterskjold, which Sir Alfred Zimmern has seemed inclined to criticise.
By all means let the international lawyer take part along with others, in the discussion of possible reforms. But this should be kept sharply distinct from his teaching of international law.
I am most anxious to challenge the prevalent, but far too optimistic assumption that you will still be able to keep on the road of scientific accuracy even if you try to proceed from a basis other than the desire to see the truth. The concept of solidarite internationale is doubtless of very great value. But it is, of course, an abstraction. It is a simplification, and, in some sense, a falsification of things as they are. As well might you begin with the concept of a conflict of interests, as with the concept of international solidarity. Let us look at the world as it is and see what we find there in the world as we see it we find on the one hand plenty of interdependence but, on the other, plenty of conflict as well.
On the whole, it seems to me that the relation between the teaching of international law and the teaching of international relations must depend upon the context. It must depend upon the classes of students for whom you are primarily catering. On the one hand, in teaching international law we do incidentally need to provide for an understanding of the background, the social substratum, the reality, in relation to which their legal doctrine is attempting to make its way in the world. They must understand the functional aspect of law if they are to realise what law really is. I think that the conceptual jurisprudence, the Begriffsjurisprudenz that has been mentioned, is largely out of date now. It is like learning to drive a car without understanding the engine. Nowadays we try to teach people to understand the engine as well as to drive the car. So if you are teaching international law, it will be a great pity if you cannot provide also for the teaching of international relations .
A much more complicated question, to my mind, is this: how intensively need the student of international relations, whose programme is already overburdened with so many other subjects, study international law? I throw out for discussion the idea that he perhaps need not know over much of the detail; that if he learns law enough to be able to understand the legal aspect of a case when it is explained to him by a lawyer, he will already have won more than half his battle. He need not set out to be a jurist in the professional sense so long as he can understand what the jurist has to tell him as to the content of international law in its bearing on a particular situation. As Mr. Brooks Emeny so well put it, you are trying to help the student to judge and to visualise. You will not visualise an international situation if you cannot understand its legal aspects, including the controversial legal aspects which even a lawyer, if he is honest, will tell you are not yet settled.
One further word: there is a subject, not strictly a branch of law but closely related thereto, la philosophie du droit, or, in English, jurisprudence. This subject is not law. The study of law is the study of legal principles, rules, distinctions and conceptions of given legal systems. The study of jurisprudence examines law as an institution, asks what law essentially, is, how it functions, how it fits into the social scheme of things and so forth. This subject, I submit, must very necessarily be taught to the student of intemational relations, la philosophie du droit, with special reference to international law- in fact, if you like, la philosophie du droit international. I would however wish that this “philosophy” should be ontological and positivistic rather than tendentious or ethical ; and that is why I would prefer not to use here the word “philosophy” at all, but the word “jurisprudence”. This subject must needs be taught to anyone who would so much as begin to understand the way things happen in the world because the attitudes of States in a given situation are to some extent influenced by their reading of the legal aspect of the situation in question. I do not mean by this that they necessarily respect the law: but they do take account of it, and they argue about it. The legal aspect is ever-present in the mind of the statesman and must be present in the mind of the student if he is to understand the statesman’s behaviour, and hence the State’s behaviour. International relations is essentially a study of the behaviour of States, and it is for that reason I agree with Sir Alfred Zimmem that it should not be too narrowly limited: the understanding of the behaviour of States presupposes an understanding of a great many other things as well.”
C.A.W. Manning 