International Law Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words - 2

International Law - Essay Example To this end, some commentators have challenged the efficacy of international law as a result of competing political interests at international level, arguing that customary law has effectively been replaced by national concerns in inter-state relations3. Directly correlated to this is the concept of â€Å"state† and â€Å"inter-state relations†, which in terms of individual human rights protections at international level has become a central issue particularly in context of rapid globalisation4. On this basis, Benevenisti and Hirsch comment that the â€Å"result is that, nowadays, people in different states are more significantly affected by activities that take place in other states†5. Moreover, the globalisation of world politics not only blurs the concept of state and the individual, it is evident that the end of the Cold War and the events of 9/11 have provided a catalyst for unprecedented challenges to the international order and national security policy. In turn this has fuelled debate as to whether the attitudes and interests of the world’s different geo-political groupings of states are too diverse to allow the proper functioning of international law. The focus of this paper is to critically evaluate this debate and in analysing the issue, this paper will highlight that the dichotomy between enforcement of international law and the primacy of national interests and contextually consider the recent failure of the conference on Climate Change in Copenhagen 2009. If we firstly consider the Copenhagen summit, the summit was held as being fundamental to securing a legally binding agreement between nations to reduce carbon emissions with a view to limiting global warming6. However, ultimately the United Nations Conference on Climate Change was a resounding failure as no concrete agreements were made and no commitments were provided that could be