TY - RPRT A1 - Lange, Felix T1 - Challenging the Paris Peace Treaties, State Sovereignty, and Western-Dominated International Law BT - The Multifaceted Genesis of the Jus Cogens Doctrine T2 - KFG Working Paper Series N2 - The genesis of the jus cogens doctrine in international law for long has been associated with a turn to a more value-laden international law after the Second World War promoted by British rapporteurs in the International Law Commission. This paper builds on this narrative but adds two seemingly contradictory story lines. In the 1920s and 1930s German-speaking international legal scholars like Alfred Verdross developed the concept as a tool to renounce the disliked Paris Peace Treaties in the context of more and more aggressive German revision policies. Furthermore, after 1945 Soviet thinkers of the Khrushchev era used jus cogens to criticize Western economic and military integration, while newly independent states regarded the concept as a promising vehicle for distancing themselves from traditional Western international legal notions in the era of decolonization. Hence, instead of embracing a progress narrative, a dark sides-account or a contributionist reading of the history of international law, this paper highlights the multifaceted origins of the jus cogens doctrine. T3 - KFG Working Paper Series - 19 Y1 - 2018 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-422510 SN - 2509-3770 SN - 2509-3762 IS - 18 ER - TY - RPRT A1 - Lange, Felix T1 - Between Systematization and Expertise for Foreign Policy BT - The Practice-Oriented Approach in Germany’s International Legal Scholarship (1920–1980) T2 - KFG Working Paper Series N2 - German international legal scholarship has been known for its practice-oriented, doctrinal approach to international law. On the basis of archival material, this article tracks how this methodological take on international law developed in Germany between the 1920s and the 1980s. In 1924, as a reaction to the establishment of judicial institutions in the Treaty of Versailles, the German Reich founded the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law. Director Viktor Bruns institutionalized the practice-oriented method to advance the idea of international law as a legal order as well as to safeguard the interests of the Weimar government before the various courts. Under National Socialism, members of the Institute provided legal justifications for Hitler’s increasingly radical foreign policy. At the same time, some of them did not engage with völkisch-racist theories, but systematized the existing ius in bello. After 1945, Hermann Mosler, as director of the renamed Max Planck Institute, took the view that the practice-oriented approach was not as discredited as the more theoretical approach of völkisch international law. Furthermore, he regarded the method as a promising vehicle to support the policy of Westintegration of Konrad Adenauer. Also, he tried to promote the idea of ‘international society as a legal community’ by analysing international practice. T3 - KFG Working Paper Series - 8 Y1 - 2018 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-421895 SN - 2509-3770 SN - 2509-3762 IS - 8 ER -