Morality and Responsibility of Rulers

Prof. Janne Nijman, Asser’s Academic Director, and Prof. Anthony Carty, Beijing Institute of Technology School of Law, have published the edited volume “Morality and Responsibility of Rulers: European and Chinese Origins of a Rule of Law as Justice for World Order”  with Oxford University Press. The volume starts out as a comparative study of both Eastern and Western traditions of thought on world order. In an interview with the Bulletin de la Recherche of the Graduate Institute in Geneva, Nijman clarifies: the book first ‘carves out histories of international thought that show how diverse the Chinese and Western traditions are in themselves.’ This then brings out ‘rule of law as justice’ conceptions alternative to the positivist conceptions of the liberal internationalist rule of law today. As such, the book is highly relevant also for current developments in the organisation of a Europe–China dialogue on peaceful world order. Nijman: ‘professor Carty and I have [the hope] that it could serve as a basis for what we understand to be a much-needed transcultural humanist dialogue on international law and international relations.

You can find the book here, and read the full interview here.