1. On this European model, see Jeremy Rifkin, The European Dream, How Europe’s Vision of the Future is Quietly Eclipsing the American Dream (New York, Penguin 2004).
2. Martti Koskenniemi, ‘International Law in Europe: Between Tradition and Renewal’ 16 EJIL (2005) pp. 113–124, at p. 113.
3. For a perfect anecdote confirming such European fears, see Philippe Sands, Lawless World: America and the Making and Breaking of Global Rules (New York, Viking Penguin 2005), recounting his visit to Tehran University and talk there about the Pinochet case. Sands decided to simply recount the facts of the case for fear that ‘the Court’s decision not to recognize Pinochet’s claim to immunity would be taken as a further example of the colonialist/imperialist tendency endemic in British culture, including its legal culture, and an inability to refrain from meddling in the internal affairs of Chile, another state’ (at p. 223). To Sands’ great surprise, however, in students’ reactions to the talk, ‘criticism was directed not at the House of Lords but at me, why did I not embrace the case as a great moment for international law and the cause of human rights? ... It was striking that international law had provided a common language to explore complex moral and political issues faced by just about every country in the world’ (at p. 224). Similarly, talk about human rights or environmental protection in the world of international trade is too often and easily portrayed as a Northern hegemonic agenda imposed on poor Southern countries. But clearly, even if such talk is at times thinly disguised protectionism, it is not as if developing countries are waiting to violate human rights or have a value-system or unstoppable urge to torture or enslave their people and to pollute their surroundings.
4. See Jack Goldsmith and Eric Posner, The Limits of International Law (New York, Oxford University Press 2005), whose theory is that ‘international law emerges from states acting rationally to maximize their interests, given their perception of the interests of other states and the distribution of state power’ (at p. 3).
5. See Leila Nadya Sadat, ‘An American Vision For Global Justice: Taking The Rule Of (International) Law Seriously’ 4 Washington University Global Studies Law Review (2005) p. 328, at p. 331 (‘the United States needs to take its commitment to the rule of law to the global stage, thereby playing to American strengths, enhancing American legitimacy and moral authority, and perpetuating the leadership role that the United States has historically exercised in the conduct of international affairs. As the hegemon presiding over — and benefiting the most from — the global economy, the United States has both a vital interest in maintaining the stability ofthat system and a responsibility to ensure that the system is fair’).