Suchergebnisse

Public international law and comparative law have so far been regarded as largely distinct fields, with little to no overlap between them. The degree of separation between the two disciplines is rendered in particularly stark relief by the absence in practice or scholarship of any real inquiry into the relationship between comparative law on the one hand and customary international law and general principles of international law on the other. Some eminent international lawyers go so far as to claim that it would be both unnecessary and unrealistic to have recourse to comparative law in the context of the identification of customary international law and general principles of law, pointing to the case law of the Permanent Court of International Justice and the International Court of Justice, which, according to them, "show[s] a clear disinclination towards the use of the comparative method."

Abstract
The normally challenging task of teaching international law is amplified when teaching international law in jurisdictions that face ongoing human rights problems and other failures of compliance with international law. In those jurisdictions, the dialectics between the globalized world economy and technology on the one hand and the intensification of hostility to human rights and substantive democracies (ie to the values of public international law) on the other hand are much more pronounced. Students will often resist international law and regard it as the 'enemy of the state' or a source of illegitimate foreign influence. The challenge of international law teachers in those jurisdictions is thus not only to teach international law but also to draw the students into – rather than alienate them from – thinking about their resistance to international law and about the relations between law, power and legitimacy. How to meet this and related challenges is the focus of this paper, which is based on the authors' practical experiences of teaching international law in several jurisdictions with an international law crisis including Hong Kong, Israel, and the People's Republic of China.