The international community seen by jurists

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This paper, drawing on the thinking of H. Lauterpacht, an international jurist in the first half of the 20th century, attempts to go beyond the traditional rift in international relations between idealists and realists; it also endeavours to determine which elements, in the jurist’s works, can be selected in order to think out the international community. As the author places her reflection within the scope of Kant’s thinking, she brings out an intermediary solution to the dilemmas of the traditional rift : the international community, created by the law, build itself under a plural shape, around great unifying principles : fundamental rights. Danger then lies within the temptation to confuse humanism and moral values, and to enforce a dogmatic and inefficient multilateralism, and to oppose Kant’s ideal to Anglo-Saxon realism. Thus, the ideal of legal humanism must be aimed at with pragmatism and a critical spirit, and by going beyond the fundamentalist opposition idealism/realism. – Summary AFRI-2005