Essex CAJI Presented: A discussion with KAKU Shun on the Legitimacy of International Law

On 26 February 2024, Shun, based in Japan, joined us here at CAJI via Zoom for a webinar in which he presented his thought provoking ideas on the relationship between political legitimacy at State level, the legitimacy of international law, and the autonomy of the individual within political processes. Shun, through analysis of the works of Besson, Dworkin, Ratner, Onuma and Buchanan and Keohane, discussed the difficulties that are inherent in existing academic thought regarding the foundations of the legitimacy of international law. In order to address some of these difficulties, Shun turned to Fuller’s idea of the internal morality of law and the 8 principles of the rule of law presented by Fuller of generality, publicity, prospectiveness, clarity, non-contradiction with other laws, the possibility of conformity to the law, constancy through time and congruence between announced laws and their administration. Shun discussed how Fuller’s presentation of the law, not as an expression of subjective will, but rather as an objective standard of human conduct, may be used and developed to provide a basis for assessing the legitimacy of international law. Central to this was an analysis of the autonomy of States, autonomy of the individual, and the relationship between the two. Shun also highlighted some instances in which there may be challenges to his proposed framework – namely where individuals by the nature of international law and their legal status within a system, are excluded from political processes, such as with stateless persons or where refugees are present in a State which is not their nation State.

Shun has kindly shared with CAJI the slides he used during this Webinar, and these are below.