Understanding The Basics Of International Law
 
By Chelsea Kopp

Part One

The Peace of Westphalia occurred at the end of the 30 years war in 1648. To contemporaries The Peace of Westphalia is also known as the “Peace of Exhaustion.” This Peace ended the supremacy of the Roman Holy Empire and redistributed much of the land that the Roman Empire had controlled. The Peace of Westphalia was actually a collection of treaties and compromises that did not tip in favor of a single state. 
The main players in the treaties signed in Westphalia were Sweden and France on one side and Spain and the Roman Empire on the other. The treaties not only restructured land agreements but it also exchanged monetary settlements and recognized sovereign states. Issues of freedom of religion were also addressed in these treaties. After the Peace of Westphalia it was France who ended up being the dominating state in Europe. 
The Peace of Westphalia was a major turning point because of the stability that it created in Europe and the greater sovereign states that came out of it. This was the first real international treaty of its kind and it set an example to states that a little compromise from everybody could benefit everyone involved. This was also at a time that communication between states were few and far between. Ambassadors were sent out with messages only to deliver the message weeks or months later. To have general agreements between states on how things should look and run was a very good idea given the difficulties of communication at that time.
The Congress of Vienna transpired after the defeat of Napoleon in 1814. A new international Congress was established to decide what to do about the land that Napoleon had seized. The Congress was controlled by the four states that together had brought a halt to Napoleon’s reign. These states were Austria, Great Britain, Prussia and Russia and they made a fair and reasonable concurrence on how to divide up the land without creating further tensions. 
In Vienna new territories and boarders were defined for Europe. Prussia was given parts of Germany, Saxony, and Poland. Russia was given much of Poland and Finland. Great Britain was given new colonies, making Britain the supreme imperial state and Norway and Sweden were joined under a single leader. The Kingdom of The Netherlands was established under the House of Orange. 
The Congress of Vienna also declared Switzerland as neutral and condemned the slave trade. The Congress helped manage the international rivers and that helped further trade between states.(1) A paramount idea of the Congress was not to come down too harshly on France, thereby reducing their divergence and the chances that they would seek revenge. This was an example that future leaders could have learned from but chose to ignore, (i.e.: The Treaty of Versailles).
The Congress of Vienna was verbal “gentleman’s agreement” between the leaders of the four states and it was very successful because there was peace in Europe for the next forty years and some of the boarders established still exist today. The next major conflict in Europe was not until WWI. The leaders of The Congress of Vienna hoped to reconvene in future conflicts to avoid possible wars to come. The Congress of Vienna led to The Treaty of Paris which organized many of the laws of the sea.
Even though the Congress of Vienna was just a “gentleman’s agreement,” it was very effective. The idea behind the Congress was to stop apprehension between European states and the members of the Congress rightly realized that the way to go about this was to have a compromise that would seem somewhat even to all the parties involved. These men realized that the solution was not the condemning France; it was working out a fair settlement. This worked very well in keeping the peace in Europe for many years to come.
The Treaty of Versailles took place in 1919, after the end of WWI. Unlike the treaties before it, The Treaty of Versailles was not a compromise; it was used as a scapegoat. The Great War was devastating to the world and the amount of pain and bitterness that came from it was intense and fresh in everyone’s mind. This led the winners of the war looking for relief of the extreme sense of loss and regret that they were feeling and Germany became the target. 
The Treaty of Versailles reduced the German army to 100,000 men and no conscriptions. The treaty said that Germany could not have any submarines, just 6 warships, and no air force. The treaty also made Germany give up land to Belgium, France, Denmark, Poland and let go of all of their colonies. The Treaty of Versailles made Germany pay back unreasonable reparations that led to immense inflation. If all of this was not bad enough the biggest blow to Germany’s ego was that they had to accept all the blame for the war in a “War Guilt Clause.” New states were formed by the lost land of Germany and Russia and Treaty of Versailles assigned Germany a proportional representation government.
One would think that the framers of the Treaty of Versailles would have looked at the success that came out of the Congress of Vienna and used it as an example, but they did almost the opposite. There were no compromises in the Treaty of Versailles, just the placing of blame and the distribution of land and money among the states that had come out on top. There were no real attempts to rebuild Germany, on the contrary they humiliated Germany and pushed them even further into debt and resignation.
It has been said that the Treaty of Versailles was a prevailing force towards the Second World War and this may be true because Germany was left in a hole that seemed impossible to get out of.(2) The embarrassment and the economic condition that Germany was in post WWI was near unrecoverable. The treaty of Versailles was thought of after the end of WWII and from it the allied powers created the Marshall Plan which helped rebuild countries that had been defeated in war.

Part Two

A lot has changed since 1970 in international politics. International law is defined as a body of rules that are legally “binding” in relationships between states.(3) It is much harder to bind states to a law when there are no signatures or written agreements to prove the law exists and that the parties contracted to abide by it. Prior to 1970 almost all of international law was customary law. Customary laws are “norms” or regularities in behavior among states that are not written down.(4) These are the “gentleman’s agreements” or the laws that everybody just knows to follow because that is the way it has been done for a long time or because they are just common sense and general principals. 
Proving customary law is difficult, courts had to show that the state had a general acceptance of the rule by showing consistent practice of it and that the state felt a sense of legal obligation to abide by it or an “opinio juris.”(5) Since international law is only valid when states agree to follow it, it was very hard for the International Court of Justice (The World Court), to hold states liable when there was nothing written to prove the law was did in fact exist. 
Today and since the1970s almost all international law is treaty law. There is no such thing as international police, so many people do not believe in the legitimacy of international law however international law is today recognized in both treaty and practice. Treaties are the simplest from of international law which today usually lead to customary law and general principals.(6) Although there are no internatio-nal police there are consequences that come from breaking international treaties. Treaties are no longer something that is taken lightly because they can bring devastating consequences.
It has become necessary for the movement of information, people, ideas and goods to travel freely across international boarders. This is not only in the best interests of the states but also of the groups that act from within the states and internationally.(7) 
The United Nations has played the major role in shaping international law especially since treaty law has been growing in esteem. The UN is the largest international organization and non-state actor. From the UN many treaties are drafted and signed through its sub-organizations like the UN Environmental Programme which is the principal international law organization, the UN Development Programme who is designed to elevate poverty and promote economic development and the UN commission on Sustainable Development, whose job is to integrate environmental problems with economic problems.(8) 
All of the UN agencies have good goals and ideas on how to help the environment but they do not work together and they have small, increasingly conditional budgets. These groups help international environmental law in many aspects they “facilitate the creation of most new treaty law by sponsoring scientific deliberation on environmental issues, preparing draft conventions…initiating and hosting negotiations of new international instruments for environmental protection…contribute to the development of customary international law by passing resolutions, declarations, model codes and guidelines on environmental issues.”(9) 
Although the UN is very large and has many members, these are large tasks, the UN makes and helps to maintain international law and the UN does not have the man power or budget to cover all the issues. The first sub-organization created to help protect the environment was UNEP and although this was a large step forward it under went a financial crisis and the members states of the UN lost confidence in it.(10) 
Over the past few years it has become a trend of UN members to pick and choose which projects and sub-organizations that they wanted their money to go to. The United States is becoming especially well-known for pulling their funding on projects that they no longer believe in or feel like being a part of.(11) This puts an extra strain onto the sub-organizations to prove how necessary their goals are and their progress towards achieving them. Budget constraints and impulsive contributor states are the UN’s environmental programs main set backs.

Part Three

Sovereign states comply with international environmental agreements because they are usually in their best interest. They are treaties and compromises that both give and take. The reduction of CFC’s, greenhouse gasses, global warming, ozone depletion and so on, benefits every state. These are global issues that require global compliance. Every nation desires and needs access to fresh water and food security, these things are necessary for survival. 
However, it is much easier for nations who have already developed to preach to those who are struggling to survive about loss of biodiversity and pollution control. In such cases treaties are formed to help these underdeveloped states with their goal of survival and the international goal of protecting the environment which means the long-term survival of us all. 
An example of this would be North Korea. North Korea is a struggling nation who was considering building nuclear plants for energy in their country. By building these nuclear plants they would also most likely be building nuclear weapons. This was foreseen by international leaders and a treaty was made to help North Korea with their energy problem if they agreed to stop working on their nuclear projects. This worked for a while until a couple of months ago North Korea decided to break the conditions of the agreement.
There are penalties to breaking international agreements that are sometimes written out in the treaty or applied after the treaty has been disobeyed. These consequences can be very serious as we have seen in the case of Iraq. The first action taken is usually the condemning of the nation through international public opinion. Sometimes two disputing states will use third party intervention to mediate their disagreement. Countries that are known international mediators are countries like Canada, Switzerland, and Denmark. Sometimes arbitral tribunals will get together and make decisions concerning international law. The UN and its members can apply sanctions to countries that have broken international law. The last resort to enforce international law can be war.(12)
Pressure is exerted by non-state actors now more than ever. There are seven major MNC’s who demand a seat at the table where international law is being drafted. They have a strong interest in the decisions being made because it directly affects their business. In the 1950’s there were around 1,000 or so international organizations and today there at least 55,000. This is a civic society that did not exist prior to WWII. Today there are even cases of sovereign states hiring international organizations to represent and negotiate their interests in international treaties and problems.
Non-state actors divide into three groups. The first are the national organizations with the ability to act globally. Next are organizations who are solely devoted to international issues. Last are the organizations that function as a global network. Almost all of these organizations were founded in the US but now they have either spread or are being replicated all over the world. These are organizations often have a lot of monetary or political backing and who lobby intense positions on international law and policy.

1.  http://www.napoleonseries.org
2. Kegley, Charles Jr. and Wittropf, Eugene R. World Politics, Trend and Transformation (MacMillan Press, 2001) at 95
3.  Wandesforde-Smith, Geoffrey 2003
4.  Hunter, David et al, International Law and Policy (Foundation Press, 2002) at 310
5.  See Hunter #3 above at 311
6.  See Hunter #3 above at 291
7.  Wandesforde-Smith, Geoffrey 2003
8.  See Hunter #3 above at 217
9.  See Hunter #3 above at 219
10.  See Hunter #3 above at 220
11. Davenport, David The New Diplomacy (Policy Review, 2003) at 1
12. Wandesforde-Smith, Geoffrey 2003