Why states obey the laws of war - Essay Example

These laws and treaties have actualized an environment of self-regulations, so that the countries obeying it, have maximally minimized aggressive overtures against other countries as well as their own citizens. However, that is not the case all the time, as certain countries without obeying the international laws have acted or are acting aggressively and unilaterally. This gross violation of international laws by countries has raised doubts about the validity and efficacy of these laws. Even amidst these disobeying of laws, countries tend to obey laws due to certain reasons.

States obey the laws and the related treaties and conventions due to mix of certain valid reasons, which mainly borders on self-interest and need for self-legitimacy, and also minimally due to coercion. Self interest constitutes various factors and one key factor is the want of the country to create a positive identity for itself. Participation in the transnational legal process and obeying all the laws helps “constitute the identity of the state as the one that obeys the law”. (Coleman).

Importantly, they does not want to acquire the tag or reputation of a law breaker or a rogue nation, and thereby standing isolated and facing a barrage of debilitating sanctions. That is, if a nation continues to disobey the laws and thereby acts in a detrimental way against particular nations as well as global community on the whole, certain nations and also overseeing body like United Nations will impose economic sanctions, trade, food and other essential commodities embargoes, etc. These punitive actions will negatively impact the nation as well as its people.

In order to avoid these scenarios, nations will tend to obey the laws. As another form of self interest, nations will obey laws to make or demand other nations to do the same. States will tend to obey laws whose underpinning political rational is clear and which they agree with, especially the laws relating to territorial integrity and inviolability of borders.(King 2005). Once obeying of law based on self-interest is done, then legitimacy will automatically fall into place. That is, states will always want legitimacy to its words and actions, and to get that they have to obey the laws.

If they want other countries to be legitmate, they have to create and obey laws appropriately. This was validated by Professor Frank who states that legitimacy means that quality of law must derive from a perception, to those to whom it is addressed, that law has come into being in accordance with right process. (Rashid 2004). Even coercion and the resultant obeying of the law is also an extension of self-interest. When a state is coerced to obey laws through armed force or other means, they will accept it mainly from self-interest perspective.

In certain cases, nations will obey laws as a form of nonconsensual coercion, but would like to exhibit as self-interest. The bottom line is, all states will want to live in peace, prosperity and in good coordination with other states and for that they will obey the international laws. When viewed from another perspective, certain States although generally act in accordance to the law, they do not always obey it. This happens mainly in the case of unilateral actions and importantly due to mis-interpretation of the laws according to their self-interests.

Also, when certain States feel as they were not part of specific law making process, they are not obligated to follow that law. When states take unilateral actions to fulfil and pursue their self-interests, imperialistic ambitions, etc, they disobey and undermine the international laws. Although, they may be part of the law making process and could have acted in accordance with those laws most of the time, they could disobey. As an