Jan Klabbers
Biographic Data
| ID | 386426 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Jan Klabbers |
| GIVEN NAMES | Jan |
| FAMILY NAME | Klabbers |
| SIGNATURE | KLABBERS J |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Helsinki |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-5354-1981 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 52 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 34 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 51 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1989 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Advancing the Role of the Facilitator in Game Science
Background This paper contributes to the ongoing work of the ISAGA Special Interest Group (SIG) on Game Science, coordinated by em. prof. Jan H.G. Klabbers since its initiation in October 2021. It builds on the themes explored during the ISAGA Symposium ‘On the Architecture of Game Science’ (Simulation & Gaming, 49(3), June 2018). In this article, we further develop the scientific foundations of Game Science by advancing the understanding of the …
Jan Klabbers, Review of Swati Srivastava, Hybrid Sovereignty in World Politics
IOM Unbound?
It is an era of expansion for the International Organization for Migration (IOM), an increasingly influential actor in the global governance of migration. Bringing together leading experts in international law and international relations, this collection examines the dynamics and implications of IOM's expansion in a new way. Analyzing IOM as an international organization (IO), the book illuminates the practices, obligations and accountability of …
Europe’s Interaction with the Rest of the World
This chapter aims to trace the influence of Europe on international law through viewing how Europe sees itself and is seen by other parts of the world. Subsequently, it discusses the contributions of the Council of Europe and the UN Economic Commission for Europe to international law. The former has pioneered human rights protection but also some law-making techniques, the latter has been remarkable for its focus on environmental protection and m…
Hidden Gems in International Organizations Law – A Brief Introduction
International organizations law, it is fair to say, is dominated by a functionalist approach. States, so this approach provides in a nutshell, create international organizations to tackle transboundary problems. States delegate functions and competences to those organizations, and international organizations law has developed to facilitate the work of the organizations. International organizations can boast such ‘implied powers’ as are necessary …
Re-theorizing International Organizations Law
Journal Article Re-theorizing International Organizations Law: An Epilogue Get access Devika Hovell, Devika Hovell Associate Professor in Public International Law, London School of Economics, London, UK Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Jan Klabbers, Jan Klabbers Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland Email: [email protected] Search for other works by this author on: Oxfo…
Introduction
Equality is both a premise and a promise (or at least much lip service is paid to such) of today’s international law. Customary international law and instruments such as the United Nations Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other foundational treaties of the multilateral system are premised on the equality of states, the right to self-determination and the fundamental equality of human beings. With the era of decolonization, i…
Jan Klabbers, Review of Jens Steffek, International Organization as Technocratic Utopia
International Law and Democracy Revisited
EJIL Symposium Issue: International Law and Democracy Revisited : Introduction to the Symposium
The Cheshire Cat That Is International Law
This brief article, partly a comment on the articles by Danae Azaria, Kristina Daugirdas and Orfeas Chasapis Tassinis elsewhere in this issue, suggests that when it comes to discussing the sources of international law international legal scholarship would do well to be sensitive to issues related to democracy, representativeness, accountability and other staples of political theory. No matter how brilliant doctrinal sources scholarship may be in …
Schermers’ Dilemma
This article, part of the symposium on ‘theorizing international organizations law’, discusses the work (and a little of the life and influence) of Henry G. (Hein) Schermers, arguably the leading functionalist international organizations lawyer of the post-war era. The article discusses how Schermers’ work solidified and consolidated functionalism and unwittingly laid bare its ‘Achilles heel’. Confronted with the growing popularity of human right…
Globalists
Book review. Reviewed work: Globalists: The End of Empire and the Birth of Neoliberalism / Quinn Slobodian. - Cambridge MA : Harvard University Press, 2018. Pp. 400. €31.50. ISBN: 9780674979529
Notes on the ideology of international organizations law
This article discusses the law and practice of the International Organization for Migration (IOM), a little-known but important international organization. The article aims to illuminate what it is the IOM does; how it influences its member state practices while simultaneously working on member state assignments; and how this affects the dominant theory underpinning the law of international organizations, i.e., the theory of functionalism. The ar…
Sources of International Organizations’ Law
This chapter reflects on the uncertainties regarding the question of why international organizations would be bound by international law. It places these uncertainties in the broader framework of a vague and ill-defined ‘turn to accountability’. As the chapter shows, international organizations are often held to account for wrongdoing without it being clear whether they have also violated an international legal obligation resting upon them. The c…
On Epistemic Universalism and the Melancholy of International Law
This contribution, first delivered as the keynote address to the 2018 annual conference of the European Society of International Law, aims to explore the effects of the way international legal research is organized on the contents of such research. The paper suggests that international law is no longer about what states do, but has come to be about what international lawyers do, and traces this to two inter-related factors (without any claims of …
Michael Ignatieff, The Ordinary Virtues
Manfred Nowak, Human Rights or Global Capitalism
Formal Intergovernmental Organizations
International law provides little support for a hard and fast distinction between formal and informal international organizations (IOs). To the extent that the terms are useful, it is to signify a relative value: some organizations exhibit a higher degree of institutionalization than others or, differently put, the mixture of formal and informal elements in any organizational design may locate the organization on different points on a continuum b…
The Redundancy of Soft Law
David Hume's words carry a distinct flavour of timeliness when read in the light of present-day debates concerning soft law. The term soft law, thus delimited, denotes those instruments which are to be considered as giving rise to legal effects, but do not amount to real law. The soft law thesis rests on shaky presumptions and finds but meagre support in both state practice and judicial practice. State practice concerning soft law appears to be r…
Reflections on Role Responsibility
This article investigates whether international organizations can be held responsible under international law when they fail to act. It aims to conceptualize the notion of ‘omission’ in the international law on the responsibility of international organizations and does so in four broad steps. First, a discussion of the most well-known failure (the United Nations’ refusal to intervene in the Rwandan genocide in 1994) suggests that there is a need …
Theorizing International Organizations
This chapter outlines a broad history of the development of thinking about the law of international organizations, with a focus on the legal theory of functionalism, as well as a discussion on the latter’s considerable strengths and weaknesses. Functionalism holds that states create international organizations to do things they are unable or reluctant to do on their own, yet consider inherently useful: organize postal relations, control the uses …
Distribution of Responsibilities in International Law
The Ejil Foreword
This article discusses the ongoing transformation of international organizations law. It first provides an overview (an anatomy) of the paradigmatic theory concerning the law of international organizations: the theory of functionalism. Subsequently, it investigates how functionalism came about and how, from the 1960s onwards, its flaws increasingly became visible. The argument, in a nutshell, is that functionalism, as a theory concerned with rela…
The Transformation of International Organizations Law
Isabelle Ley. Opposition im Vo lkerrecht
The Emergence of Functionalism in International Institutional Law
The theory of functionalism dominates the law of international organizations, explaining why organizations have the powers they possess, why they can claim privileges and immunities, and often how they are designed as well. Yet, the theory of functionalism is rarely spelt out in any detail, and its origins have remained under-explored. The purpose of the present article is to outline how functionalism came about by focusing on the 'pre-history' o…
Possible Islands of Predictability
This essay explores the legal thought of Hannah Arendt, and is one of the first to do so. Having presented an Arendtian view on law and its relations to politics, it subsequently discusses how an Arendtian view might yield insights on some topical international issues, in particular the much-discussed issue of constitutionalism in international law
On Epistemic Universalism and the Melancholy of International Law
This contribution, first delivered as the keynote address to the 2018 annual conference of the European Society of International Law, aims to explore the effects of the way international legal research is organized on the contents of such research. The paper suggests that international law is no longer about what states do, but has come to be about what international lawyers do, and traces this to two inter-related factors (without any claims of …
Whatever Happened to Gramsci? Some Reflections on New Legal Realism
This article responds to five pieces published in the previous issue of the Leiden Journal of International Law , extolling the virtues of a new legal realism. I first express some doubts as to whether an awful lot can and should be expected from yet another new approach to the study of international law; earlier approaches widely heralded have quietly disappeared from sight, sometimes without leaving much trace. Subsequently, I discuss the exten…
Rebel with a Cause? Terrorists and Humanitarian Law
In colourful language, the sentiment is voiced at the close of the First World War by van Vollenhoven: 'The international law of Grotius has reached the door, and it is knocking. For 300 years they have let it knock. Now it overwhelms us. The key has not yet been turned, but the bolts have already been removed
Globalists
Book review. Reviewed work: Globalists: The End of Empire and the Birth of Neoliberalism / Quinn Slobodian. - Cambridge MA : Harvard University Press, 2018. Pp. 400. €31.50. ISBN: 9780674979529
Notes on the ideology of international organizations law
This article discusses the law and practice of the International Organization for Migration (IOM), a little-known but important international organization. The article aims to illuminate what it is the IOM does; how it influences its member state practices while simultaneously working on member state assignments; and how this affects the dominant theory underpinning the law of international organizations, i.e., the theory of functionalism. The ar…
Reflections on Role Responsibility
This article investigates whether international organizations can be held responsible under international law when they fail to act. It aims to conceptualize the notion of ‘omission’ in the international law on the responsibility of international organizations and does so in four broad steps. First, a discussion of the most well-known failure (the United Nations’ refusal to intervene in the Rwandan genocide in 1994) suggests that there is a need …
The Meaning of Rules
This article examines the interpretation of rules as an essential part of their meaning. It starts with some of the most foundational rules - pacta sunt servanda, for instance - and points to their contested nature. It looks at some of the causes of this inherent contestability and its effects on the international system. It concludes by noting that appeals to rules never settle a debate, but only begin the interpretative process that constitutes…
The New Dutch Law on the Approval of Treaties
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
International Law and Democracy Revisited
EJIL Symposium Issue: International Law and Democracy Revisited : Introduction to the Symposium
The Cheshire Cat That Is International Law
This brief article, partly a comment on the articles by Danae Azaria, Kristina Daugirdas and Orfeas Chasapis Tassinis elsewhere in this issue, suggests that when it comes to discussing the sources of international law international legal scholarship would do well to be sensitive to issues related to democracy, representativeness, accountability and other staples of political theory. No matter how brilliant doctrinal sources scholarship may be in …
The Ejil Foreword
This article discusses the ongoing transformation of international organizations law. It first provides an overview (an anatomy) of the paradigmatic theory concerning the law of international organizations: the theory of functionalism. Subsequently, it investigates how functionalism came about and how, from the 1960s onwards, its flaws increasingly became visible. The argument, in a nutshell, is that functionalism, as a theory concerned with rela…
Mark Mazower. No Enchanted Palace
Mark Mazower. No Enchanted Palace: The End of Empire and the Ideological Origins of the United Nations.Princeton University Press, 2010, Pp. 236. $24.95. ISBN: 9780691135212. International lawyers have long held international organizations in high esteem. Paul Reinsch, arguably the first author to write comprehensively on the law of international organizations about a century ago and largely responsible for laying the foundations for the function…
No More Shifting Lines? the Report of the Iraqkuwait Boundary Demarcation Commission
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Simulation-Gaming in the Late 1980s
(partial) Keynote Papers. Gaming context. Network gaming. Communicating about simulation design. 'Power' and 'realism' in simulation and gaming. Language and Communication. Language, computers and simulation. Advances in the development of hand-held, computerised, game-based training devices. Computer-assisted language acquisition. The educational potential of interactive literature. Simulation/drama in the teaching of Asian History at a Canadian…
No More Shifting Lines? the Report of the Iraqkuwait Boundary Demarcation Commission
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
The New Dutch Law on the Approval of Treaties
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Case Analysis
The law relating to state succession played a small but important role in the World Court's recent decision in Gabčíkovo-Nagymaros . Hungary's argument that the 1977 Treaty had not survived the transition from Czechoslovakia to Slovakia notwithstanding, the Court found that the 1977 Treaty had continued to be in force. Hungary presented several arguments relating to succession: the absence of consent; and that only certain rights and obligations …
Separating Law and Politics
Sceptical Views on Human Rights
Rebel with a Cause? Terrorists and Humanitarian Law
In colourful language, the sentiment is voiced at the close of the First World War by van Vollenhoven: 'The international law of Grotius has reached the door, and it is knocking. For 300 years they have let it knock. Now it overwhelms us. The key has not yet been turned, but the bolts have already been removed
Redemption Song? Human Rights Versus Community-building in East Timor
The present article identifies a tension between the two main mandates of the UN's administration of East Timor: community-building on the one hand and human rights promotion on the other. While originally planned to accompany each other, in practice the goal of human rights promotion took over, perhaps on the basis of the thought that serious community-building presupposes that a catalogue of human rights (including enforcement machinery) is in …
Treaties, Conclusion and Entry into Force
Treaties, Amendment and Revision
Treaties, Object and Purpose
The Meaning of Rules
This article examines the interpretation of rules as an essential part of their meaning. It starts with some of the most foundational rules - pacta sunt servanda, for instance - and points to their contested nature. It looks at some of the causes of this inherent contestability and its effects on the international system. It concludes by noting that appeals to rules never settle a debate, but only begin the interpretative process that constitutes…
Possible Islands of Predictability
This essay explores the legal thought of Hannah Arendt, and is one of the first to do so. Having presented an Arendtian view on law and its relations to politics, it subsequently discusses how an Arendtian view might yield insights on some topical international issues, in particular the much-discussed issue of constitutionalism in international law
Theodor Meron
The constitutionalization of international law
The Magic Circle
The purpose of this unique book is to outline the core of game science by presenting principles underlying the design and use of games and simulations. Game science covers three levels of discourse: the philosophy of science level, the science level, and the application or practical level. The framework presented will help to grasp the interplay between forms of knowledge and knowledge content, interplay that evolves through the action of the pla…
The Bridge Crack'd
Roundtable
This roundtable develops arguments presented at the 2008 International Studies Association (ISA) annual convention. The theme of the convention was `Bridging Multiple Divides' and its aim to enhance dialogue among the diverse research communities within international studies. The aim of the `Limits of Bridge-Building' panel at ISA, and the present roundtable, has been to probe the challenges presented by bridge-building and specifically the possi…
Virtuous Interpretation
Ips Forum Contribution (Issue 3, Vol. 4)
International lawyers have long advocated interdisciplinary scholarship with, in particular, scholars of international relations. After all, so the slogan went, the two disciplines “occupy the same conceptual space” (Slaughter 1995), so what could be more fruitful than interdisciplinary cooperation? It turns out, though, that this logic has yet to generate much useful interdisciplinary scholarship, and this finds its cause in the awkward circumst…
Mark Mazower. No Enchanted Palace
Mark Mazower. No Enchanted Palace: The End of Empire and the Ideological Origins of the United Nations.Princeton University Press, 2010, Pp. 236. $24.95. ISBN: 9780691135212. International lawyers have long held international organizations in high esteem. Paul Reinsch, arguably the first author to write comprehensively on the law of international organizations about a century ago and largely responsible for laying the foundations for the function…
Antonio Cassese, Five Masters of International Law
The great British philosopher Michael Oakeshott once observed that ideally teaching should be a personalized affair and take place one on one, as practical knowledge can be acquired only by continuous contact with one who is perpetually practising it .1 This way, someone of shown mastery in a subject could guide a pupil along, instruct on points of detail, correct him or her where he or she would threaten to make a mistake, and carefully track th…
Normative Pluralism and International Law
Philip Liste. Volkerrecht-Sprechen
Once upon a time, quite a long time actually, international lawyers were not terribly interested in the linguistic aspects of their craft. Treaties, obviously, would depend on language, and sometimes the two or more languages would be designated as equally authentic, but, even so, international lawyers trusted that their professional skills would enable them to solve linguistic issues without too many problems. Occasionally scholars would write s…
The Emergence of Functionalism in International Institutional Law
The theory of functionalism dominates the law of international organizations, explaining why organizations have the powers they possess, why they can claim privileges and immunities, and often how they are designed as well. Yet, the theory of functionalism is rarely spelt out in any detail, and its origins have remained under-explored. The purpose of the present article is to outline how functionalism came about by focusing on the 'pre-history' o…
Political science (45 works) · Sociology (37 works) · Law (33 works) · International Law and Human Rights (27 works) · Global Peace and Security Dynamics (24 works) · International law (23 works) · Law (23 works) · Law and economics (23 works) · Politics (16 works) · Epistemology (13 works)