Equality of states : its meaning in a constitutionalized global order

I. INTRODUCTION In the discourse on international relations, we routinely differentiate between various categories of states and label them according to certain criteria that we consider relevant for our understanding of the dynamics of international politics. Sometimes these criteria are purely factual, but mostly they have an evaluative, even moralizing, overtone. For example, the denotation of a state as a coastal state, inland state, nuclear state, or nuclear-power state is both factual and informative. Arguably, labels like Great Power, small state, or developing state combine factual with evaluative elements. But most state labels have a predominantly evaluative character. Labels such as failed or failing state, semi-sovereign state, democratic state, rogue state, or outlaw state are largely contested and accepted only by those who share the evaluative assumptions which form the basis of such a marker. However doubtful the labeling of a state in a particular case may be, the identification of states according to their distinctive features is an indispensable means for the analysis of international relations. To know that a particular actor is a state is a necessary, though rarely sufficient, condition for the correct understanding and interpretation of its actions. It is important for those who act and interact in the realm of international politics to know with what particular kind of state they are involved. Like human beings, states also possess an individuality that defines both their self-perceptions and external perceptions (which, of course, may diverge and more often than not, do). Thus, the diversity of the individual states is an essential element of the political world, and their classification according to their distinct character is a useful instrument for understanding international politics. For instance, the significance of geography for the political status and power of a state has been conceptualized in the idea of geopolitics since the German geographer Friedrich Ratzel established the discipline of political geography at the end of the nineteenth century.1 Political history and ethnography are other examples of knowledge systems that aim to understand the concreteness of political entities-states being the dominant type worldwide in modernity. Despite the different character of states in terms of their territorial extent, geographical particularities, population size, religious and cultural imprints, political systems, and other factors, there has always been a claim that states are equal as legal persons. In the words of one of the leading textbooks on international law, "The equality before International Law of all member-States of the Family of Nations is an invariable quality derived from their international personality."2 A person is equal before the law if she is protected by the law and has to discharge her duties in the same manner as all other persons under the same conditions. The principle is an axiomatic tenet of the doctrines of natural law for which it was "self-evident, that all men are created equal," as the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America of July 4, 1776, translated the philosophical ideas of Grotius, Hobbes, Locke, and others into political action several generations later. Although it is a matter of dispute whether Grotius, arguably the most influential founding father of international law, established the principle of states' legal equality,3 there is broad agreement that this doctrine is inspired by the analogy between individuals in human society and states in the society of states. Emer de Vattel, who in 1758 published his influential book on Le Droit des Gens, ou Principes de la Lai Naturelle Appliques a la Conduite et aux Affaires des Nations et des Souverains? drew this analogy explicitly in the title of the book and explained it in its introduction: Since men are by nature equal, and their individual rights and obligations the same, as coming equally from nature, Nations, which are composed of men and may be regarded as so many free persons living together in a state of nature, are by nature equal and hold from nature the same obligations and the same rights. …