국제법에 대한 마르크스주의 접근

A Marxist Approach to International Law

Although Marx’s grand plan was not realized by the collapse of the Soviet Union and other Eastern European blocks and the unprecedented expansion of economic capitalism and political liberalism, Marx’s legacy continues to be reinterpreted and reproduced in various fields of disciplines such as politics, economics, sociology, philosophy and aesthetics. As the fundamental legal system of the international community, international law has been playing a pivotal role in shaping and managing world affairs. However, there is not always only bright side to the role of international law, and it is also true that the dark side behind it has been deliberately ignored and concealed in the process of international law development. Thus, exposing concealed problems is indispensable in making international law move in the right direction. In this context, as a critical perspective, a Marxist approach to international law would be needed to properly analyze concealed problems such as structural coercion, class struggles, illegitimate liberal democracy and predatory capitalism mainly driven by powerful capitalist States. As an international law method, a Marxist approach to international law has its strength to reveal deliberately hidden issues involving suppression, domination, subjugation and exploitation and to suggest a grand reformation of the international law’s structure including even the extinction of international law. However, a Marxist approach to international law also has its weakness to suggest feasible and acceptable solutions to the international community’s problems by its rigorous employment of an already-determined process of argumentative reasoning. Also, the tension between focal points on the analysis of legal problems, such as ‘forms of law’ or ‘contents of law’, is not softened within a Marxist approach to international law. More problematically, a Marxist approach to international law has its identity problems as an international law method because it merely tends to combine other international law methods to overcome its weakness. Although still disappointing, above mentioned weakness of a Marxist approach to international law could not necessarily be understood as the final verdict on the uselessness of a Marxist approach to international law. By exposing the hidden problems in international law driven by powerful capitalist States through a Marxist approach to international law, the international community could be awareness of these problems, and various international law methods possibly have the chance to have more active access to leaked problems. A Marxist approach to international law certainly has its significance in that it provides agendas, which need to be explored more critically, for various international law methods. It would be interesting to predict how a Marxist approach to international law maintains its identity as an international law method while making a bold attempt to overcome its weakness by integrating different international law methods.