Morality in International Law

DOES MORALITY BELONG IN THE FORMATION OF INTERNATION LAW? The discussion of whether or not morality belongs in international law has its' roots in both the definition of morality as a concept, and the ability of an international body to legitimize the adjudication process based on premises of morality. The term 'moral' has its' roots in middle english according to the oxford dictionary: “from Latin moralis, from mos, mor- 'custom', (plural) mores 'morals'. As a noun the word was first used to translate Latin Moralia, the title of St Gregory the Great's moral exposition of the Book of Job, and was subsequently applied to the works of various classical writers.”1 If we are to believe the Oxford analysis of the etymology of the term moral than morality is inescapably linked to religion from the inception of the term originating from a synopsis of a biblical text. Despite the issues that arise with connecting church and state, the creation of law on the premise of morality will not be discussed with specific relation to the etymological foundation of morality as a religious concept. Rather the propensity of morality based arguments to be reduced to an emotional nature, the ability of regional and micro-scale adjudicatory bodies to regulate more specified legality debates being mitigated by international morality related laws, and the nature of morality based arguments to alienate certain sects of society determined by the mutual-exclusivity of morality centered litigation will be analyzed in this document. From a philosophical perspective, one can adopt views on the nature of humanity from a plethora of sources. This paper determines its' philosophical beliefs from the works of Thomas Hobbes. Specifically in Hobbes' arguably most famous of works the leviathan, Hobbes determines his view on the 'state of nature' for all humans within this text. In chapter eleven of the leviathan, Hobbes proclaims that mankind has a general “inclination... and restless desire of