{"id":205674,"date":"2022-09-13T18:11:16","date_gmt":"2022-09-13T12:41:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=205674"},"modified":"2022-09-13T18:11:16","modified_gmt":"2022-09-13T12:41:16","slug":"india-has-lost-its-way-in-the-use-of-international-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/india-has-lost-its-way-in-the-use-of-international-law\/","title":{"rendered":"India has lost its way in the use of international law"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Source<\/strong>: The post is based on the article\u00a0\u201cIndia has lost its way in the use of international law<\/strong>\u201d<\/strong>\u00a0published in\u00a0The Hindu\u00a0<\/strong>on\u00a013th<\/sup>\u00a0September 2022<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Syllabus<\/strong>: GS 2 \u2013 Foreign policy of India.<\/p>\n

Relevance<\/strong>: About International law and India’s participation.<\/p>\n

News<\/strong>: India\u2019s Constitution makers saw the value of international law. Article 51 of the Constitution states that the state shall foster respect for international law. But now the Indian policy-makers rarely employ the international law vocabulary.<\/p>\n

About India’s participation in international law<\/h5>\n

Ever since India’s independence, India asserted its sovereignty and championed the principle of self-determination in international law. India played a key role in organising the first Asian-African Conference at Bandung in 1955, proclaiming that colonialism should \u201cspeedily be brought to an end\u201d.<\/p>\n

India has a)<\/strong> Remained committed to the UN Charter and has always advocated the peaceful settlement of international disputes, b)<\/strong>\u00a0Engaged with international law norms in multiple fields such as human rights, trade, investment, environment, ocean, space, etc. has expanded vastly, c)<\/strong> Played an active role in shaping international law on terrorism by proposing a Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism (CCIT), and d)<\/strong> Initiated the International Solar Alliance (ISA) to influence international environmental law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Read more: How India has approached customary international law<\/a><\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n
Why India’s low participation in International law is a cause of concern?<\/h5>\n

Western countries justify their conduct of international relations by embedding them in international law to gain legitimacy for their actions. However, India only makes marginal articulation of India’s national interests internationally.<\/strong><\/p>\n

For instance, a)<\/strong> India\u2019s failure to use the international law vocabulary to call out Chinese transgressions of India\u2019s sovereignty, b)<\/strong> India\u2019s statement as part of the right of reply in September 2021 in the United Nations did not once mention \u2018international law\u2019, c)<\/strong> Barring a few instances such as suing Pakistan at the International Court of Justice in the Kulbhushan Jadhav case, India has not used international courts to hold Pakistan accountable for its breach of international law,\u00a0 and d)<\/strong> India\u2019s failed to legally challenge Pakistan\u2019s denial of most favoured nation status to India at the World Trade Organization.<\/p>\n

All this resulted in India\u2019s failure to develop and contribute new international law doctrines, interpretations, and principles that suit its national interests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Must read: India should develop its strategy of ethical lawfare by mainstreaming international law lexicon into its diplomatic toolkit\u00a0<\/a><\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n
What are the reasons behind India’s low participation in International law?<\/h5>\n

This is because 1)<\/strong> India’s foreign service is heavily populated by generalist diplomats, 2)<\/strong> The legal and treaties (L&T) division<\/strong> of the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA)<\/strong> is grossly understaffed. The L&T division has a strength of 13 offices as opposed to an approved strength of 23, 3)<\/strong> Fragmentation of decision-making in international law with the involvement of several Ministries such as finance, commerce, law, environment, etc, and 4)<\/strong> The Government has also failed to fund research in international law. This resulted in India\u2019s abysmal capacity in international law, and 5)<\/strong> The MEA funds research centres such as the Indian Council of World Affairs (ICWA)<\/strong>. But the ICWA focuses largely on the study of international relations, not international law, 5)<\/strong> Low performance of Indian Society of International Law (ISIL)<\/strong>: It was supposed to become a centre of excellence for research in international law. Its flagship journal, the Indian Journal of International Law (IJIL), is nowhere close to the top international law journals in the world despite being over 60 years old.<\/p>\n

What should be done to improve India’s participation in International law?<\/h5>\n

Fulfil the recommendation of the parliamentary committee<\/strong>: In 2021, the committee recommended that the MEA should establish chairs for research in international law in universities.<\/p>\n

India\u2019s ambition of punching above its weight in international affairs cannot be accomplished without its investing in international law. So India should invest in them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Source: The post is based on the article\u00a0\u201cIndia has lost its way in the use of international law\u201d\u00a0published in\u00a0The Hindu\u00a0on\u00a013th\u00a0September 2022. Syllabus: GS 2 \u2013 Foreign policy of India. Relevance: About International law and India’s participation. News: India\u2019s Constitution makers saw the value of international law. Article 51 of the Constitution states that the state… Continue reading India has lost its way in the use of international law<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10311,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1230,9],"tags":[212,10498],"class_list":["post-205674","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","category-public","tag-gs-paper-2","tag-the-hindu","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1704915317},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205674","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10311"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=205674"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205674\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=205674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=205674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=205674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}