chapter seven

Dissident Voices

E

ven at its highest tide, mainstream positivism did not have a monopoly

over international legal thought. In fact, the nineteenth century was rich

in heterodoxical perspectives on international law— views that, in some

cases, would gain greatly in force during the following century. One of these

dissident schools of thought was the natural- law tradition, a hardy peren-

nial that managed to survive even in the inauspicious climate of positivism.

In addition, three other principal dissident approaches arose in the nine-

teenth century, or at least came into prominence for the fi rst time. Th ese

were liberalism, the nationality school, and solidarism (or the so cio log i cal

school, as it sometimes known).

All four of the dissident schools rejected two of the most central tenets of

mainstream state positivism. First, they rebelled against the conservative,

technocratic ethos of positivism— against its insistent focus on what the law

is, to the exclusion of speculation about what it should be. Instead, they were

reformist in outlook, seeking to make international law a vehicle for chang-

ing the world (for the better, of course). In this regard, they were all of an

optimistic temperament. Th ey did not regard international relations as be-

ing inherently confl ictual or competitive, and they believed that progress

was possible (or even inevitable). Th e siren call of a glorious future sounded

vigorously through all three of these new schools.

Th e second way in which all four of the heterodoxical schools parted

company with positivism was in rejecting its state- centered focus. Natural

lawyers, as in previous periods, emphasized international law as an over-

arching system of norms— a system of rules to which states were subject,

making states the servants and not the creators of law, as they were for the