426 Between Yesterday and Tomorrow (1914– )Of the solidarist writers on the Eu ro pe an scene, one of the boldest was
Rolando Quadri, from Italy. Somewhat confusingly, Quadri referred to his
approach as “realism”— meaning, thereby, something very diff erent from
realism in international-relations writing. Be that as it may, he dismissed the
will- based variants of positivism (the common- will theory and autolimita-
tion) as mere “dialectical artifi ces.” Th e common- will theory was derided as
“a manifest fi ction.” Also rejected were rationalist theories of law as a logi-
cal emanation from basic axioms. Th e correct position, he asserted, is that
law is a “social fact.” Th e “is” and the “ought” are not separate concepts, as
the nineteenth- century positivists had believed, but are one because reality
itself is a unity.
Unlike most solidarists, Quadri placed a great stress on sanctions and
coercion as central features of international law. “Without coercion,” he
contended, “there is no law.” Th e coercive force behind international law is
found not in the separate wills of the individual states, but rather in the col-
lective will of the community at large, which stands above the individual
wills of the states. International law is therefore, as he put it, “the expression
of superior needs over par tic u lar interests.” Th is superior will, he added,
is decidedly reminiscent of Rousseau’s General Will, in that it is not to be
discovered in a mechanical fashion, by majority voting. It can be discerned
only by a careful analysis of “the forces which historically succeed in ren-
dering a rule eff ective.” Th e “dominant social forces” of any given period
operate, in Quadri’s opinion, as “a ‘living’ constitution,” superior to any
written ones that exist and determine the character of international law at a
given time.
Quadri advanced a theory distinctly reminiscent of Scelle’s dédoublement
fonctionnel, in regarding states as operating, potentially, in two quite dis-
tinct capacities. One is an egoistic capacity, in which a state seeks to advance
its own interests. In the other capacity, it acts as a member of the interna-
tional community— and, as such, as a participant in the making and enforc-
ing of international law. In this second capacity, intervention in the aff airs
of other states is permissible. Quadri was therefore more willing than many
other writers to accept the interventionist implications of solidarist thought,
with its stress on interdependence, community, and general interest at the
expense of narrow egoism.