Exams

One of those nothing posts where I complain about exams.

Re: Exams: "Complain, complain, complain." [Repeat as necessary.]

I was all excited about studying international law, but then I ended up with a lousy lecturer and realised how much of a fiction the whole thing really is. Not that law itself is not a fiction, but at least municipal law has enforcement mechanisms. International law really doesn't have that many effective enforcement mechanisms. As they say in the first chapter of our (badly written, badly indexed and generally bad) textbook: "Yes, well, international law seems to work, and States adhere to it - but we don't really know why..."

Then there's Kelsen and his search for the grundnorm, i.e. the God Norm in whose image all other norms are formed. Which, personally, I think is complete bullshit. You cannot say that every single "norm" descended from one original standard of behaviour.

Then there's the ridiculous article in our readings about how the concept of the State is inherently masculine. It's apparently all to do with impermeable boundaries and the penetration thereof. Apparently our definitions of statehood also reinforce the view of women as inferior. It's people like these writers who give feminism a bad name.

The hippogriff, sorry, the elephant in the room in international law classes appears to be the fact that, unless the powerful States participate, international law is meaningless. I don't think it's been mentioned once in the entire course how ineffective the UN is without US support. Then there's China, whose human rights violations are the stuff of legend - and yet nothing is done about it. (Then there's the Sudan, where nothing is done either, but I don't think that's got anything to do with their economic clout.)

Sigh.

And I was so looking forward to international law!!