The normative dimension of international relations and the advisory opinion of the ICJ on the separation barrier

In this paper, I address the relevance of the normative dimension of international relations against the background of the Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice of July 9, 2004, with reference to the legality of the security barrier/fence being erected by the Israeli government since March of 2002. I examine different approaches to the study of norms in international relations, focusing upon the Grotian approach, which represents a middle ground between the extreme Hobbesian (Realist) and Kantian (idealist) traditions of international relations. According to the Grotian approach, international norms affect the foreign policy of individual countries through their institutionalization in the international society, usually through multilateral instruments of international law. In this sense, both the ruling of the Israeli Supreme Court of June 30, 2004, and the Advisory Opinion of the ICJ of July 9, 2004, represent and reflect those instruments. The International Court of Justice is the major legal institution of the United Nations, which is the embodiment of our international society. Hence, even if its ruling is considered biased or distorted (by Israel), it still carries an important normative and political baggage, by underlining paramount norms such as self-determination and protection of human rights.