Transcivilizational International Law Against the System of International Relations: Onuma Yasuaki's Normative Choice

The essay analyses Onuma Yasuaki's theory of international Law. In Onuma Yasuaki's research, international law must, as a necessary condition, be interpreted from a historical perspective. The historical reconstruction enables him to highlight the distance that separates the age of natural law and the subsequent positivist period from the instability of the current international legal order. At the root of this instability is the crisis of the West-centricity of the contemporary international order, suggesting the need to rethink this order from a transcivilizational perspective . On the ground of these premises the essay analyses three aspects: I. Onuma's historical approach; II. The relation between globalisation and international human rights law; III. The question of war and the use of force.