Commentary on Remembering Peace in a Time of War:
Why International Law Matters More Than Ever
Peace and International Law –
Some TWAIL Reflections
By Antony Anghie
Published on 30 July 2025
This collection of essays illuminates the rich, complex, multi-dimensional, contradictory relationships between peace on one hand, and international law and relations on the other. The essay by Nilüfer Oral points to how even regimes that are not centrally focused on peace, such as the law of the sea, `the constitution of the oceans’, may be seen as an effort to reduce conflict—a conflict central to Grotius’s defence of `The Free Sea’. Elena Pribytkova suggests that the `right to peace’ should be given effect as an enforceable right. This extends the nexus between human rights and peace through the elimination of war, which is suggested in the Preamble of the United Nations (UN) Charter, which states the determination of the people of the UN to `reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights’: a framework somewhat different from the idea that peace itself is a human right. Hélène Tigroudja’s post explores the efforts made by regional human rights courts to ensure the protection of existing human rights with a view to achieving the overarching and larger goal of ensuring peace. Jon Truby points to new developments in quantum science and technology that need to be managed by the law to prevent massive inequalities in power and new tools of domination for the few states that develop these resources. Julia Vassileva and Trisha Unnikrishnan look directly at the people affected by any peace process and argue for their incorporation in that process, again through the law. Vassileva makes this argument to include women, and Unnikrishnan for non-state actors beyond those directly involved in the conflict. The peace building process must extend beyond the state. Onur Uraz, Yang Wenlan, and Celine Lange, while emphasising different aspects of the larger topic of international courts, focus on the role of those courts, namely the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA), in achieving peace. Hla Yadanar Win also deals with the law of the UN Charter in suggesting how the Security Council might use Article 39 to proactively ensure peace. Vincenzo Elia’s essay explores how the European Union sought to establish peace in a continent that had been the centre of two world wars. Importantly, it gives us an insight into the role that a managed political economy might play in ensuring peace and stability and furthering prosperity. Johan Pahlepi’s essay, in a sense, combines two elements found in the other works, outlining how an avowedly and explicitly ASEAN approach to peace might be institutionalised.
What might TWAIL add to the rich range of issues raised by these essays? Peace has always been a central concern of Third World states. We might attribute this concern to the leading Third World intellectuals. It is still instructive to listen to Gandhi’s address, available on YouTube (here, and here), at the Inter-Asian Relations Conference in 1947, and his reinterpretation of the term `conquest’. This was a world in which it was war—and victory in war—that states striving to earn the respect of Western states had to establish themselves, as seen with Japan compelling Western states to recognise its sovereign status as an equal member of the family of nations after its victory over Russia in the 1905 Battle of Tsushima.
But there are far more self-interested and practical reasons why Third World states have focused on peace. This is simply because war against non-European states was such a constant feature of the nineteenth century. Indeed, it could be argued that this was a structural feature of international relations of the time: the long relative peace enjoyed by Europe between the Congress of Vienna and the outbreak of the First World War was surely facilitated by the imperial expansion of European states into Asia and Africa, where Western conquest and exploitation of the resources of those territories and people was ensured by superior technology. Thus, it is unsurprising that peace was a central concern of the Bandung Conference.[1] The Bandung Communiqué deals extensively and in detail with many aspects of peace in two sections headed, respectively `Promotion of world peace and co-operation’ and `Declaration on the promotion of world peace and co-operation’. Asian states were especially concerned by the fact that major conflicts taking place at the time in Korea and Vietnam were located in Asia, and yet Asian states had little say in the UN system dominated by the Security Council: in the system that aspired to manage these conflicts (G. H. Jansen, pp. 41-42). It was the privilege of the victorious powers to dominate the system of international order that aspired to create global justice. Inevitably, that vision of peace and justice was deeply shaped by the underlying structures of power that served as the foundation of the UN. It was paradoxical that rivalries among the great powers armed with nuclear weapons posed the greatest threats to international peace and stability and yet, because of the veto system in the Security Council of the UN Charter, no international action could be taken. Instead, the so-called `Cold War’ between the Western and Soviet blocs played itself through large scale conflicts and dictatorial rule in many parts of Asia and Africa and Latin America.
While affirming the basic principles of the UN Charter, the Bandung Sections deal specifically and in detail with the issue of representation—pointing for instance to the imbalances in the Security Council, an enduring issue; and the threat of nuclear war and the need for disarmament (see Section G of the Communiqué). These two issues, representation and disarmament are, if anything, even more relevant to international peace than they were at the time they were articulated. All this is simply to say that there is and has been a `Third World’ approach to peace since at least the time of Bandung.[2] This of course is not to say that Third World states are particularly virtuous, that vicious and destructive wars have not been waged among them, or within them. Rather, it is to say that normatively, and diplomatically, there has been a recognised Third World tradition relating to peace that was articulated at Bandung and that must be understood for its role in shaping international law and relations. This is a tradition which has now extended and expanded over the 70 years since the Bandung Conference.
The essays in this collection intersect in various respects with this tradition. Nilüfer Oral points to the connections between Bandung and the law of the sea, one of the major issues where the debate was not between rival European states as it was in the time of Grotius and John Selden, but between the North and the South, the rich world and the poor world. It is a continuing battle that now includes the battle over deep-sea bed mining, an issue falling again within the purview of the law of the sea. Johan Pahlepi’s article outlines how ASEAN’s approach could be seen as distinctively Asian, a way of furthering peace among states deeply invested in protecting their own sovereignty-and sovereignty was a major concern of the Bandung states. The idea of a separate Asian entity had been considered. Nehru, interestingly, had mooted the idea of an `Asian Federation’. What the ASEAN model of peace might suggest is not only a focus on deliberation and negotiation, but a focus on inter-state stability in the face of internal violence. At the same time, it offers a model of how states preoccupied with protecting their own sovereignty—and this is a legacy of Bandung—can work towards achieving peace.
What might a focus on alternative approaches to peace suggest, in this time of ongoing violence and crisis? The post by Rashmi Raman and Samuel White raises the large question of whether there are non-Western traditions of thinking about peace that may enrich our approach to this topic. As they point out, the Western `just war’ tradition has been central to international law and its institutions; and the concept of just war is central because it legitimises war. Wars of self-defence are inherently just. A number of questions, of course, follow: when is self-defence justified? Are there any limits to self-defence?
The Buddhist tradition adopts a very different approach to the concept of a `just war’. As Judge Weeramantry who devoted his life and career to making international law an instrument of peace reminds us, citing the Buddhist scholar Walpola Rahula:
According to Buddhism there is nothing that can be called a `just war’—which is only a false term coined and put into circulation to justify and excuse hatred, cruelty, violence and massacre. Who decides what is just and unjust? …. Our war is always `just’ and your war is always `unjust’. Buddhism does not accept this position.
This position, which completely repudiates the very concept of just war appears radical and impractical. What is to happen to the justification of self-defence then? Or we might see this approach as acutely insightful, a clear understanding of the problems associated with the indeterminacy of the concept, the problem of who is to `decide’ in a situation where it is almost always the powerful who decides. Importantly, it compels self-reflection, introspection, about the uses and abuses of the term. And it leads us to think: what happens to our understanding of international law if we excise `just war’ from its history and vocabulary?
But we should resist creating easy divisions between East and West. The Arthashastra, which to me advocates endless Empire as essential to survival, is as much a part of the great traditions which produced the Mahabharatha and the Ramayana (both of which centered on wars). China’s unification took place under Emperor Qin Shi Huang who adopted a vision shaped very much by Chinese realism or legalism rather than Confucianism. And Sun Tzu’s Art of War, surely one of the great works of realist statecraft, is also a part of the Chinese tradition.
In the West, just war developed precisely because of the radical teachings of Christianity, Romans 12:20—`Blessed are the peacemakers’; `If your enemies are hungry feed them. If they are thirsty give them something to drink.’ The larger peace project then might be to engage with what is distinctive about these many traditions, to understand the competing arguments even within these traditions, and to connect these different transnational traditions of thinking about peace and how to achieve it.
TWAIL scholarship has emphasised the importance of non-state actors in the making of international law. Thus, the essays by Julia Vassileva and Trisha Unnikrishnan are persuasive arguments as to how these actors are important for peace initiatives and how international law might facilitate this. And they point indeed to a larger issue. Historically, it is at the great conferences, Vienna, Versailles, San Francisco, that peace is turned into some system of law and institutions. And yet, peace movements and protests, including women’s movements, have been essential for the larger project of peace. Elena Pribytkova’s essay, arguing for a recognition of the right to peace illustrates the many regions and countries in which the right to peace or a related concept has been articulated. This is surely impressive evidence of the global desire for peace and, moreover, as a human right, an effort to enable the wishes of people to find expression in the international arena. Hélène Tigroudja’s essay illuminates how the existing human rights systems in Europe, Latin America and Africa try through their activities to promote peace through their interpretations of human rights. Hla Yadanar Win also points to how existing law, the law of the Charter itself, may better advance the cause of peace. The existing legal systems, deliberately and carefully constructed over the years since the UN Charter was drafted, offer then all these ways to achieve peace, if only the states who administer those regimes choose to use them.
Economic imperatives have driven colonialism and quite often lead to conflict and exacerbate inequality. Vincenzo Elia’s essay squarely raises the relationship between war and political economy, demonstrating how peace was achieved in Europe through an initiative that began with coal and steel and that has now led to the development of the European Union. This is one version of how political economy and trade may be connected for peace rather than conflict. European wars, of course, have not been confined to Europe, they have been `world wars,’ conflict in Europe extending out to draw all countries in. The question arises: how has nationalism taken such a virulent form in many of the states that are part of this Union. What are the connections between political economy and nationalism? And whether this model will survive the nationalist movements that are now such a feature of contemporary European societies remains to be seen. But it is an inspiration that must be kept in mind, the Kantian liberal peace plus expert technocratic management. The larger question that it raises is whether economic rationality, a system where a shared economic system creates prosperity for all, can deal with what appear to be primordial appeals to identity and the nation.
Jon Truby’s article points to new technological developments, in effect new methods of warfare and new weaponry developed by the powerful that can easily be deployed against the less powerful. How can technology be developed and used to further peace rather than exacerbate, as nuclear weapons have done, tensions and conflict? This is an issue for global deliberation, for the endorsement of the General Assembly, as Truby argues. But in a world where notions of a global community, and the value of advancing that global community are diminishing, real challenges must be faced. And to the extent comparisons might be made with that other great technological breakthrough, the development of nuclear weapons, the precedents are discouraging.
The essays by Onur Uraz, and Yang Wenlan and Celine Lange focus on the roles of courts, the PCA and more extensively, the ICJ, in promoting peace. Each essay discusses the limitations of the Courts in settling disputes, especially complex, `megapolitical disputes’. This issue has become especially prominent because of the numerous and wide-ranging cases being heard by the Courts, now busy dealing with many provisional measures applications and requests for advisory opinions on matters ranging from the rights of Palestine and the law of responsibility for the environment to conflicts in Ukraine and Myanmar. The questions are large and numerous: is the Court being asked in effect to exceed its proper function? Is this a version of `lawfare’ (a term that, oddly enough, appears to have been coined when efforts were made to question the actions of powerful states that had historically developed international law to further their own interests)? Will the ICJ, in particular, lose credibility? What is the relationship between law and politics? Is it possible that the ICJ provisional measure rulings will exacerbate rather than resolve conflict in these complex cases? These are large questions that cannot be addressed in a blog. A few observations might be in order. Who is to decide what a `complex’ matter is, one that is to be better resolved by negotiation? It is surely the case that law cannot resolve all disputes, that many issues must be addressed through a political process. It is also surely the case that the powerful—when the law is not on their side, and indeed, when they are breaching accepted norms—urge `complexity’ and `negotiation’, in a situation where such negotiations inevitably favor the powerful. And it is commonplace to note that all political disputes have legal dimensions which it is proper for a court to address.
Should compliance be the sole and decisive test? I would argue not. The Nicaragua Case was—certainly from the point of the United States—what would be termed in today’s parlance a `complex case’ in that it involved difficult factual elements, a larger political context (see Judge Schwebel’s Dissenting Opinion). The decision of course was largely ignored by the United States: but the law stated in the Nicaragua case endures as fundamental to the law of force and self-defence. Similarly, fundamental norms are being asserted in many cases, norms relating to self-determination, to human rights; and in other cases, such as the Advisory Opinion on the Obligations of States in respect of Climate Change (the Advisory Opinion on Climate Change), a unique global problem was being presented to the Court.
Historically, it has been within and through the General Assembly that the Third World has sought to bring about international change. This was most evident in the efforts to create a New International Economic Order. The Declaration on Friendly Relations Among States, another initiative of the General Assembly, was again driven by Third World States. This neglected document remains pertinent. The broader point perhaps is that the General Assembly represents, however imperfectly, the voice of the international community. Given the structured deadlock of the Security Council, it is surely the General Assembly that has acted responsibly condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and the release of the hostages. It is the developing states that are then trying in various ways to assert fundamental norms of international law—South Africa’s Case against Israel is an effort to assert the humanity of Palestinians, their fundamental right to exist in the face of the unrelenting violence inflicted on them by Israel. The Advisory Opinion on Climate Change is an effort, through the request of the General Assembly to identify the relevant law on climate change and the environment. The Opinion just handed down is one of the most significant in the history of the Court, both because it outlines the relevant law and sharpens our understanding of what needs to be done if international law is to play any role in addressing the unfolding global devastation of environmental degradation.
It is the General Assembly and the ICJ that are forums, then, in which a universal international law can be asserted, or else, global problems that endanger peace can be presented for the purposes of clarifying the relevant law. These efforts may be seen as quixotic, naïve in their apparent defiance of the imperatives of realism, power, sovereignty, hegemony. There are many ways of thinking about what is universally recognised as a crisis—a mega crisis?—in international law. The temptation might surely be, among courts, institutions, and international lawyers themselves, to salvage some version of the discipline by tailoring international law to the demands of sovereigns—especially of course, powerful sovereigns-hoping in some way to appease them while attempting to gently persuade them to act better. This approach would resemble the international law of the nineteenth century, when sovereignty was unquestioned and compliance was such a decisive issue. But we should not forget the corollary, if not the underlying premise of that system: that coercion, war and conquest were legal within it. Multilateral institutions did not exist, and no real concept of the `global community’ was developed in a situation where positivism reigned. This may be the future the discipline faces. But it is an odd situation as we are no longer living in the nineteenth century, but in a world of interdependence facing environmental catastrophe, the prospects of nuclear war, and ongoing economic and health crises.
It is the four hundredth anniversary of the publication of a great book, De Iure Belli ac Pacis, or On the Law of War and Peace. The title itself suggests that War is the governing reality, peace secondary. As the illuminating introduction by Nilüfer Oral and Rashmi Raman suggest, however, that order of priority must be contested and reversed. International law and institutions may yet play a role in this process in the ways suggested by these essays. Peace surely is the theme that unifies everything, the foundation of all aspirations for a better world or even simply a world in which the human race might continue to survive.
[1] For a detailed study of the theme of peace, Bandung, and the Third World tradition of peace, see Dianne Otto, `Peace’ in Research Handbook on Third World Approaches to International Law, (edited by Antony Anghie, B.S. Chimni, Michael Fakhri, Karin Mickelson and Vasuki Nesiah, Edward Elgar, forthcoming).
[2] This is explored in detail in Dianne Otto, `Peace,’ ibid.