In the Odyssey, Ulysses asked his crew to bind him to the mast as his ship passed by the sirens. The image illustrates a question that runs through decades of German foreign policy: why would a State voluntarily accept legal constraints on its own freedom of action?

Germany's answer was shaped by the experience of a nation that once placed itself above any law and was ruined by it. Since 1949 Germany has bound itself more tightly than almost any other State – to the European treaties, to UN and NATO, to international human rights frameworks and since 2008, to the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice. We see the compulsory nature of ICJ’s jurisdiction as international law working as intended. A State that accepts the jurisdiction of a court only when the acceptance seems comfortable has not accepted that jurisdiction at all.

This lecture examines self-binding as a strategy rather than a sacrifice, in three fields of priority for German foreign policy. Security: the prohibition of the use of force and why it may be beneficial for the security of a State to adhere to international law rulebooks. Freedom: individual criminal accountability from Nuremberg to the International Criminal Court and why it is worthwhile to defend this institution, which is now under sustained pressure. Prosperity: the beneficial role international law and why it’s instruments are central for the business model of every trading nation. Germany’s argument is that binding oneself to rules recognized by the community of nations is not a limitation of sovereignty but a safeguard for it.