On The Body Of The New Century International Law

The Noumena of international law is the abstract essence of international law, which consists in the basic elements of international law such as concept, nature, type, binding force, source and functional model. The Ontology of international law, which is the fundamental part of the philosophy of international law, is the theory on the Noumena of international law. The Ontological researches on international law are mainly focused on three issues: What is international law? What are the basic principles of international law? And, how does the international law be applied to international relations? After defining the noumena of international law, the relationship between the development of international relation from the times of Grotius and international law, and the challenge for the contemporary international law and the research inspectives in chapter one. Chapter two to four are focused on the three issues as following.Firstly, I think international law is the sum of rules and regulations applied to international relations; it is the combination of natural international law and positive international law. Natural international law is the perceptual knowledge of laws of the development of international society; it belongs to discovered rules applied to international relations. The sources of natural international law consist in basic principles, general principles (General principles of law), and specified principles (Jus cogens). Added with natural international law, the international law will become a perfect, systematic and formally rational "law".Secondly, I think there are five basic principles of natural international law: justice, equity, equality, bona fides and harmony. Justice means suum cuique, helping the good and depressing the evil; it is a positive means which reconcile benefits and values. Equity means whatever you require that others should do to you that do yet to them and judging impartially; it is a negative means which reconcile benefits and values. Equality means the same kind of subjects shall formally have the same rights and obligations; it is the formality requirement of justice and equity and is the direct theoretical foundation of sovereignty. Bona fides means doing good and keeping faith to others; it is a kind of practical reason. Harmony means uniting but keeping differences with peoples and getting along well with the nature; it is a practical reason which derives from Chinese traditional culture. There are certain levels and prior orders among the five principles. The values of international law are certain abstractsubjective beliefs or inclinations imposed to positive international law. As "law", not just tool of foreign policy, international law has and should have independent basic values. The values of international law should correctly reflect natural international law, while the basic principles of natural international law should be constructed as basic values of positive international law.Thirdly, I think the natural international law and positive international law have dynamic relations with each other. The former determines the latter, while the latter counter-reflects the former. Most natural international laws would be transformed to positive international laws through the agreement of nations and thus be applied to international relations indirectly, the general principle of laws would be directly applied to international relations temporarily in specific cases or conditions, jus cogens would be applied directly to international relations.Chapter five tries to analyze contemporary international law practices with the ontology of international law. Once doing it, it is easy for us to find that the contemporary positive international law has many defaults, owing to its failure to keep accordance with natural international law. The hegemony takes advantages of this situation to devastate recognized international laws in the name of national interests, which results in the crisis of international law in the new century. However, the will of super power can not match objective laws in the long run. It is the way out for international law in the new century to understand the objective laws about the development of international society and to make positive international law fit natural international law more and more.In the last chapter, I suggest the new perspective of the theoretical and practical development of Chinese international law. In the theoretical aspect, we shall follow two lines: one is to combine our Chinese idea of harmony to western ideas of justice, equity, equality and bona fides, and construct a perfect basic principle system of natural international law; the other is to link natural international law and positive international law, and remedy the defects resulted from the separate transformation of western legal theories in the past. In the practical aspect, we shall construct basic values of positive international law which fit in well with the new century and to promote the positive international law to develop in the same direction of natural international law.