Mohd Izahar bin Ishamuddin 227710.

The Politics of International Law: Martti Koskenniemi.

The video has a duration of almost one hour that told us all the real definition of politic
and international law. The expert on the video was Martti Koskenniemi who is an international
lawyer and a former Finnish diplomat. The video is very important for us to study the real
essence of the subject by differenced the real meaning of politic and international law. It has
been regards that politic is a totally different things from international law but at the same time
they were related to each other. The video also touch a little bit about the development of politic
and international law by well known scholar such as Hans Morghentau who is also a founder
of international relation studies.
Martti Koskenniemi has stated that politics is very important to international law. We
can only start to feel being political when we feel intensely about that. According to him, there
is no way to define the limit of politic and international law. The meaning here is that when the
political entity is set the law will follow. Mostly, the role of politic and international law was
crucial for the interest of the nation. As example, a political system can became better with
good law and justice. However the was a problem that real politic will used their power to gain
sovereignty but later on it will alienated the law to maintain their power.
Besides, a problem also can occur involving peace as law decide the political decision
for sovereignty. Next, Martti Koskenniemi has make a stance between politic and international
law and how they can related to each other. Law and politics are profession of form of our lives
as they have their own language, rules, professional engagements, interest, agenda, histories
and sociology. Politics can be define as dark, dangerous. Martti Koskenniemi also said that
politics is like a jungle where we fight our lives to survived. Politics is so passionated,
uncontronable and anarchic as it was a really tough place to live due to its power.
Other from that, law is very opposite to the politics. Its cannot be denied that politics
have too much power and must be contain with the law to make sure a good balanced between
power and human welfare. Law is an idea, rules and principles to control political power. Law
is not involving the use of force. However, political ideologies were more dangerous and
intangible without proper law. Politic is very riskly to expose with the evil passion and selfish
desires by individuals.
As a result, to control and protect the world from cruel political ideology by certain
individual or government from occurring we need the role of law to play some part into it. Law
can act as the police system, legal facts institution, caught system and rulebook for a better
politics. Law is stating a guideline about how we should live a harmonious live. Law can be
considered wonderful to the humanitarian idea that intervene the power of politics. Power
politics is essentially a way of understanding the world of international relations. Nations
compete for the world's resources and it is to a nation's advantage to be manifestly able to harm
others. It prioritizes national self-interest over the interest of other nations or the international
community but with the limitation of international law. So we can conclude that law play a
substantial role as police and institution for societies by controlling political power mechanism.
The real reason behind these was due to the nature that law has a concrete solidarity
and verifiability according to Martti Koskenniemi. As example, politician could have endless
debate in the parliament. Such debate will cause tension among parliamentary member by
blaming each other and as well to protect themselves from any accusation. But, with an
establishment of law the debate will have good direction based on the rulebook.
Next, Martti Koskenniemi also said that it was easier to imagine ourselves as a lawyer
rather than politician. The legal mind set is set by our personal responsibility. The idea of
individual rights emerges and spread to tackle social problem that exercised the power of
politics in the world. Despite all that, the power of law is also limited. Sometimes, legal
languages can limit our ability to operate and help those who we want to help. Next, some law
is also insufficient as it is unacceptable due to bureaucracy. As a reminder, we must well awared
that politics can leads to some kind of sovereignty that creates egoism.
As solution, any unheard voice of law will be brought to the international community
to fight against political power. These collective measures can also became part of the problem
and can also became part of the solution. Part of the problem was sovereignty of nation can be
declined with the trade law, economic law, security law, human right law, environmental law
and law of the sea. Meanwhile part of the solution is a standard and fair law can be negotiate
and practised. Later, we will became more and more technical as relationship between law and
international politics became more complexes and slight different relation ever possible
imagined by all of us.