The Obsolescence of the States System?

Abstract

It is sometimes argued that whether or not the states system is in decline, it is obsolete in the sense of being dysfunctional — that is to say, that it has ceased or is ceasing to be capable of fulfilling the basic ends or goals of man on earth. On this view the states system, whether or not it is judged to have provided a satisfactory means of attaining it in the past, does not now or will not in the future provide a viable path to world order. It follows from this that even if we accept the argument of the last chapter that there is no conclusive evidence that the states system is giving place to an alternative form of universal political organisation, we should nevertheless recognise that the goal of world order requires some alternative, and dedicate ourselves to work for it. This, for example, is the perspective of the editors of a recent series of volumes on The Future of the International Legal Order, Cyril E. Black and Richard A. Falk. It is stated also, with more passion, in Falk’s This Endangered Planet.¹