Rein Mullerson - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Papers by Rein Mullerson
European Law Open
The publication in 2017 of Dawn of a New World (I B Tauris) confirmed Rein Müllerson as one of th... more The publication in 2017 of Dawn of a New World (I B Tauris) confirmed Rein Müllerson as one of the great international lawyers of his generation. His career is deeply marked by the recent history of Europe. He was a young director of the Department of International Law of the Academy of Sciences of Moscow in the 1980s, doubling down as legal advisor to Gorbachev during the decisive years of perestroika and glasnost. It is not an exaggeration to say that, in those hectic days, Müllerson saw history unfolding from the machine room of the Kremlin. In the 1990s, after a brief but very intense period as secretary of state of the newborn Estonian Republic, Müllerson joined academia again as professor of international law at the LSE first, then at King’s College. His inexhaustible stamina allowed him to wear a second hat as adviser on human rights to the United Nations, spending quite some time in Central Asia. After his retirement from King’s College, he returned in the 2010s to Tallinn a...
European Law Open
The publication in 2017 of Dawn of a New World (I B Tauris) confirmed Rein Müllerson as one of th... more The publication in 2017 of Dawn of a New World (I B Tauris) confirmed Rein Müllerson as one of the great international lawyers of his generation. His career is deeply marked by the recent history of Europe. He was a young director of the Department of International Law of the Academy of Sciences of Moscow in the 1980s, doubling down as legal advisor to Gorbachev during the decisive years of perestroika and glasnost. It is not an exaggeration to say that, in those hectic days, Müllerson saw history unfolding from the machine room of the Kremlin. In the 1990s, after a brief but very intense period as secretary of state of the newborn Estonian Republic, Müllerson joined academia again as professor of international law at the LSE first, then at King’s College. His inexhaustible stamina allowed him to wear a second hat as adviser on human rights to the United Nations, spending quite some time in Central Asia. After his retirement from King’s College, he returned in the 2010s to Tallinn a...
In the sixth month of Barak Obama's Presidency twenty two former politicians and intellectuals fr... more In the sixth month of Barak Obama's Presidency twenty two former politicians and intellectuals from Central and Eastern Europe addressed an open letter to the new Administration. The signatories are worried of emerging trends of 'pragmatism' and 'realism' in Washington's foreign policy. It is rather symptomatic that no worries were expressed in these circles when George W. Bush was in the White House and American prestige was falling around the world. The letter is a direct result of President Obama's visit to Moscow and small and cautious steps towards what has become fashionable to call 'resetting' the relations between Washington and Moscow (though 'upgrading', not going back to either Soviet or Yeltsin years, is what is really needed). The authors of the open letter 'want to ensure that too narrow an understanding of Western interest does not lead to the wrong concessions to Russia'. They don't have any doubts that perhaps it may be their own perception of Western (as well as their peoples') interests that may be narrow and even parochial. They worry that in their countries a new generation of leaders may emerge that don't share old memories and that would follow more 'realistic' policies. But isn't this exactly what is needed? New leaders (be it in Russia, in Eastern Europe or in America), not burdened by the stereotypes of the past era, would be better equipped to tackle 21 s t century challenges. Even the revolutionaries of the 1980s such as Mikhail Gorbachev, Lech Walesa or Vaclav Havel (the last two are signatories of the letter)-notwithstanding all their great contribution to the advancement of freedom in their own countries as well as in the world as a whole-can hardly be leaders in a 21 st century world. It is only in military dictatorships that those who carry out coups also keep ruling long after coming to power (if not overthrown by another coup). Usually it is that 'la revolution devore ses enfants' though not necessarily in the literal sense as in France of 1789 or in Russia of 1917. The signatories who write that they are 'Atlanticist voices within NATO and the EU' seem to speak mainly on behalf of what the former Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld called 'the new Europe' in contradistinction to the 'old', i.e. Western, Europe. However, what may have been 64
Anuario Mexicano de Derecho Internacional
In 2022 the world has entered into a phase of geopolitical and geo-economic reconfiguration with ... more In 2022 the world has entered into a phase of geopolitical and geo-economic reconfiguration with the emergence of multipolar elements. The armed conflict on the territory of Ukraine is a military phase of a geopolitical standoff between the collective West, embodied mainly by the United States and NATO, and those for whom Western domination is not acceptable, epitomized in that case by Russia. But how did the world, after the Fall of the Berlin Wall and justified expectations of a peaceful future, find itself in a situation where the use of military force has become almost normal, at least until it is used against those Europeans who had chosen the “right side of history”? How and why, towards the end of history, the most important principles of international law became twisted and reinterpreted to such an extent that soon there may not be a last man left to contemplate this end? As history gives some hints about right as well as wrong ways of ending military confrontations, I will ...
Non-State Actors and International Law, 2001
Beiträge zum ausländischen öffentlichen Recht und Völkerrecht
The article analyzes some aspects of legitimacy of decisions of international courts and tribunal... more The article analyzes some aspects of legitimacy of decisions of international courts and tribunals. It starts the analysis from a series of questions touching upon the potential aspects of legitimacy. The author firstly put international judicial decisions to the test of Thomas Franck's indicators of legitimacy. Then, he focuses on some examples of practices aimed at "legitimizing" or "de-legitimizing" international decisions within the Goldstone meaning of legitimacy.
Current regime changes (the Arab Spring and earlier colour revolutions in some of the former Sovi... more Current regime changes (the Arab Spring and earlier colour revolutions in some of the former Soviet republics) raise interrelated issues of international relations (IR) theory and international law. Among these issues are democratic peace theory (DPT) and its role in supporting or justifying policies guided by economic and strategic interests as well as external inducement of, assistance or encouragement for regime change. Also raised are questions about the use of force for humanitarian purposes (“humanitarian intervention” or “responsibility to protect”) and interference, militarily or otherwise, in internal conflicts on behalf of either governments or opposition.
Tallinn University Law School, 2015
The Australian Year Book of International Law Online, 2001
Dawn of a New Order, 2017
European Journal of International Law, 1990
The restructuring (perestroika) of internal affairs in the Soviet Union has been accompanied by t... more The restructuring (perestroika) of internal affairs in the Soviet Union has been accompanied by the development of new thinking in the area of external relations as well; new thinking which responds to the rapidly changing world of the late 20th century. In this world, while there hangs over humanity the threat of self-destruction either in the holocaust of a nuclear war or in the process of ecological destruction, yet there has emerged the hope that faced with these new threats humanity will more speedily become aware of its unity, of the interdependence of the fates of all peoples of the world, and unite to combat these threats. The basic social contradiction in this world can no longer be the opposition between capitalism and socialism, the resolution of which would be that one social system would either bury the other or leave it on the rubbish heap of history. Rather, the major contradiction of the contemporary world, the resolution of which must, for the foreseeable future, be the dynamic force in the development of civilization, the basis for an awareness of unity, has become the contradiction between the need for survival and global threats to that survival. The rejection of the dogmas aimed at setting East and West, socialism and capitalism, against each other, the search not for what divides us but what unites-that is what is most important today. In the light of the new political thinking, a review of many international law concepts is also taking place in the USSR. One of the most important issues requiring reconsideration is our approach to the role of the individual both in a given society and in the world as a whole. I feel that we have hitherto overemphasized the role of the state, of the nation, and particularly of the classes, forgetting about the human being and humanity. In these times our primary concern should be the interest of humanity as a whole in connection with the global threats to its existence, as Director of the International Law section of the Institute of Stale and Law of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR.
International Law the International Court of Justice and Nuclear Weapons 1999 Isbn 0 521 65480 7 Pags 267 274, 1999
International and Comparative Law Quarterly, 1994
Chinese Journal of International Law, 2016
Since the Cold War, high—some would say naïve—expectations of a world in which law, impartially i... more Since the Cold War, high—some would say naïve—expectations of a world in which law, impartially interpreted and applied, would have primacy over politics have not materialized. Differing visions of desirable and possible world orders are accompanied by propaganda warfare where even international law is used as a tool of hegemonic dominance or, on the contrary, as an instrument to counter such dominance. Instead of the Cold War rivalry between the liberal capitalistic and communist creeds, today the main competition is between ideologies justifying the continuation and expansion of the uni-or non-polar world with one centre of power, the world that has to become more and more homogeneous (liberal democratic), and a multi-polar balance of power world. This article argues that, taking account of the very size and even more so the cultural and developmental diversities, as well as the complexity and increasing reflexivity, of the world, the only realistically possible international system is a multi-polar one. Moreover, international law, as a normative system based on the balance of interests and compromises and not necessarily on shared ideology (this may underpin domestic legal systems or EU law), can function relatively well only in a multi-polar, balance of power, concert of powers system which is consciously and conscientiously built and accepted as legitimate. And though the processes of globalisation have a tendency to homogenize the world while making many, if not most, societies organized as states more heterogeneous, attempts to accelerate these processes are almost bound to be counter-productive.
Select Proceedings of the European Society of International Law : Volume 2 2008
European Law Open
The publication in 2017 of Dawn of a New World (I B Tauris) confirmed Rein Müllerson as one of th... more The publication in 2017 of Dawn of a New World (I B Tauris) confirmed Rein Müllerson as one of the great international lawyers of his generation. His career is deeply marked by the recent history of Europe. He was a young director of the Department of International Law of the Academy of Sciences of Moscow in the 1980s, doubling down as legal advisor to Gorbachev during the decisive years of perestroika and glasnost. It is not an exaggeration to say that, in those hectic days, Müllerson saw history unfolding from the machine room of the Kremlin. In the 1990s, after a brief but very intense period as secretary of state of the newborn Estonian Republic, Müllerson joined academia again as professor of international law at the LSE first, then at King’s College. His inexhaustible stamina allowed him to wear a second hat as adviser on human rights to the United Nations, spending quite some time in Central Asia. After his retirement from King’s College, he returned in the 2010s to Tallinn a...
European Law Open
The publication in 2017 of Dawn of a New World (I B Tauris) confirmed Rein Müllerson as one of th... more The publication in 2017 of Dawn of a New World (I B Tauris) confirmed Rein Müllerson as one of the great international lawyers of his generation. His career is deeply marked by the recent history of Europe. He was a young director of the Department of International Law of the Academy of Sciences of Moscow in the 1980s, doubling down as legal advisor to Gorbachev during the decisive years of perestroika and glasnost. It is not an exaggeration to say that, in those hectic days, Müllerson saw history unfolding from the machine room of the Kremlin. In the 1990s, after a brief but very intense period as secretary of state of the newborn Estonian Republic, Müllerson joined academia again as professor of international law at the LSE first, then at King’s College. His inexhaustible stamina allowed him to wear a second hat as adviser on human rights to the United Nations, spending quite some time in Central Asia. After his retirement from King’s College, he returned in the 2010s to Tallinn a...
In the sixth month of Barak Obama's Presidency twenty two former politicians and intellectuals fr... more In the sixth month of Barak Obama's Presidency twenty two former politicians and intellectuals from Central and Eastern Europe addressed an open letter to the new Administration. The signatories are worried of emerging trends of 'pragmatism' and 'realism' in Washington's foreign policy. It is rather symptomatic that no worries were expressed in these circles when George W. Bush was in the White House and American prestige was falling around the world. The letter is a direct result of President Obama's visit to Moscow and small and cautious steps towards what has become fashionable to call 'resetting' the relations between Washington and Moscow (though 'upgrading', not going back to either Soviet or Yeltsin years, is what is really needed). The authors of the open letter 'want to ensure that too narrow an understanding of Western interest does not lead to the wrong concessions to Russia'. They don't have any doubts that perhaps it may be their own perception of Western (as well as their peoples') interests that may be narrow and even parochial. They worry that in their countries a new generation of leaders may emerge that don't share old memories and that would follow more 'realistic' policies. But isn't this exactly what is needed? New leaders (be it in Russia, in Eastern Europe or in America), not burdened by the stereotypes of the past era, would be better equipped to tackle 21 s t century challenges. Even the revolutionaries of the 1980s such as Mikhail Gorbachev, Lech Walesa or Vaclav Havel (the last two are signatories of the letter)-notwithstanding all their great contribution to the advancement of freedom in their own countries as well as in the world as a whole-can hardly be leaders in a 21 st century world. It is only in military dictatorships that those who carry out coups also keep ruling long after coming to power (if not overthrown by another coup). Usually it is that 'la revolution devore ses enfants' though not necessarily in the literal sense as in France of 1789 or in Russia of 1917. The signatories who write that they are 'Atlanticist voices within NATO and the EU' seem to speak mainly on behalf of what the former Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld called 'the new Europe' in contradistinction to the 'old', i.e. Western, Europe. However, what may have been 64
Anuario Mexicano de Derecho Internacional
In 2022 the world has entered into a phase of geopolitical and geo-economic reconfiguration with ... more In 2022 the world has entered into a phase of geopolitical and geo-economic reconfiguration with the emergence of multipolar elements. The armed conflict on the territory of Ukraine is a military phase of a geopolitical standoff between the collective West, embodied mainly by the United States and NATO, and those for whom Western domination is not acceptable, epitomized in that case by Russia. But how did the world, after the Fall of the Berlin Wall and justified expectations of a peaceful future, find itself in a situation where the use of military force has become almost normal, at least until it is used against those Europeans who had chosen the “right side of history”? How and why, towards the end of history, the most important principles of international law became twisted and reinterpreted to such an extent that soon there may not be a last man left to contemplate this end? As history gives some hints about right as well as wrong ways of ending military confrontations, I will ...
Non-State Actors and International Law, 2001
Beiträge zum ausländischen öffentlichen Recht und Völkerrecht
The article analyzes some aspects of legitimacy of decisions of international courts and tribunal... more The article analyzes some aspects of legitimacy of decisions of international courts and tribunals. It starts the analysis from a series of questions touching upon the potential aspects of legitimacy. The author firstly put international judicial decisions to the test of Thomas Franck's indicators of legitimacy. Then, he focuses on some examples of practices aimed at "legitimizing" or "de-legitimizing" international decisions within the Goldstone meaning of legitimacy.
Current regime changes (the Arab Spring and earlier colour revolutions in some of the former Sovi... more Current regime changes (the Arab Spring and earlier colour revolutions in some of the former Soviet republics) raise interrelated issues of international relations (IR) theory and international law. Among these issues are democratic peace theory (DPT) and its role in supporting or justifying policies guided by economic and strategic interests as well as external inducement of, assistance or encouragement for regime change. Also raised are questions about the use of force for humanitarian purposes (“humanitarian intervention” or “responsibility to protect”) and interference, militarily or otherwise, in internal conflicts on behalf of either governments or opposition.
Tallinn University Law School, 2015
The Australian Year Book of International Law Online, 2001
Dawn of a New Order, 2017
European Journal of International Law, 1990
The restructuring (perestroika) of internal affairs in the Soviet Union has been accompanied by t... more The restructuring (perestroika) of internal affairs in the Soviet Union has been accompanied by the development of new thinking in the area of external relations as well; new thinking which responds to the rapidly changing world of the late 20th century. In this world, while there hangs over humanity the threat of self-destruction either in the holocaust of a nuclear war or in the process of ecological destruction, yet there has emerged the hope that faced with these new threats humanity will more speedily become aware of its unity, of the interdependence of the fates of all peoples of the world, and unite to combat these threats. The basic social contradiction in this world can no longer be the opposition between capitalism and socialism, the resolution of which would be that one social system would either bury the other or leave it on the rubbish heap of history. Rather, the major contradiction of the contemporary world, the resolution of which must, for the foreseeable future, be the dynamic force in the development of civilization, the basis for an awareness of unity, has become the contradiction between the need for survival and global threats to that survival. The rejection of the dogmas aimed at setting East and West, socialism and capitalism, against each other, the search not for what divides us but what unites-that is what is most important today. In the light of the new political thinking, a review of many international law concepts is also taking place in the USSR. One of the most important issues requiring reconsideration is our approach to the role of the individual both in a given society and in the world as a whole. I feel that we have hitherto overemphasized the role of the state, of the nation, and particularly of the classes, forgetting about the human being and humanity. In these times our primary concern should be the interest of humanity as a whole in connection with the global threats to its existence, as Director of the International Law section of the Institute of Stale and Law of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR.
International Law the International Court of Justice and Nuclear Weapons 1999 Isbn 0 521 65480 7 Pags 267 274, 1999
International and Comparative Law Quarterly, 1994
Chinese Journal of International Law, 2016
Since the Cold War, high—some would say naïve—expectations of a world in which law, impartially i... more Since the Cold War, high—some would say naïve—expectations of a world in which law, impartially interpreted and applied, would have primacy over politics have not materialized. Differing visions of desirable and possible world orders are accompanied by propaganda warfare where even international law is used as a tool of hegemonic dominance or, on the contrary, as an instrument to counter such dominance. Instead of the Cold War rivalry between the liberal capitalistic and communist creeds, today the main competition is between ideologies justifying the continuation and expansion of the uni-or non-polar world with one centre of power, the world that has to become more and more homogeneous (liberal democratic), and a multi-polar balance of power world. This article argues that, taking account of the very size and even more so the cultural and developmental diversities, as well as the complexity and increasing reflexivity, of the world, the only realistically possible international system is a multi-polar one. Moreover, international law, as a normative system based on the balance of interests and compromises and not necessarily on shared ideology (this may underpin domestic legal systems or EU law), can function relatively well only in a multi-polar, balance of power, concert of powers system which is consciously and conscientiously built and accepted as legitimate. And though the processes of globalisation have a tendency to homogenize the world while making many, if not most, societies organized as states more heterogeneous, attempts to accelerate these processes are almost bound to be counter-productive.
Select Proceedings of the European Society of International Law : Volume 2 2008