STARTING POINT PERSPECTIVES ON THE RELATIONSHIPBETWEEN POLITICS AND LAW

Law and politics as social phenomena are two emanations of the same
entity (a monistic ontological conception), regarding which their separate
existence is only a consequence of a human dualistic or pluralistic
perception of the world (a dualistic ontological conception).
Furthermore, the difference between law and politics is, from a deeper
ontological perspective, in fact only illusory, for reason of which also in
the fields of legal and political theory and philosophy there are
conclusions regarding the partial or complete overlapping of law and
politics, sometimes even the equating of the two that raises a crucial
question of how both notions are defined. Regardless of such findings,
the distinction (i.e. consciously persisting in a distinction) between law
and politics at the current level of human development is necessary and
indispensable.
With politics, it is necessary to distinguish three fundamental
dimensions: the institutional dimension, the normative dimension, and
the process-related dimension. The institutional dimension is expressed
by the term polity and entails the operation of various regulated state and
non-state institutions like political parties, social movements, public
I. In this article, by the tenn international law I refer exclusively to public internationallaw.

2. A legal system must have a relative degree of autonomy. It cannot be but ‘power politics’
   nor can it be only a specialized language to describe behavior. It lacks the character of law if it is not
   in some degree ‘binding’, that is, it must be a means of independent control that affectively limits the
   acts of the entities subject to it. To that degree, law must be independent of politics. Nor is it law if
   decisions are wholly arbitrary or capricious. But acknowledging the necessity of that degree of
   autonomy still allows us to recognize that non-legal factors partly detennine or influence the
   creation, application and modification of the norms and procedures that constitute the legal system
   (Schachter, 1986, p.747)
3. 009] THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN LAW AND POLITICS 21
4. media, the legislature, and the government. The normative dimension is
5. expressed by the term policy and entails the creation of normative ideas
6. or ideals that define basic societal values and objectives geared towards a
7. practical realization of such. Lastly, the process-related dimension is
8. expressed by the term politics, which is expressed in the formation of the
9. political will through the implementation of the social power and
10. authority and built up through conflict and consensus. 3
11. If we attempt to concisely analyze the law through the above mentioned
12. three dimensions, we can see that from an institutional perspective, the
13. law is expressed primarily through two factors: the establishment of
14. specific state bodies legitimized by means of their specific professional
15. legal structure and functioning (e.g., the courts and the state prosecutor’s
16. office), and non-state institutions where the attorneyship belongs. From
17. the normative perspective, the law is the creation of general and
18. individual legal norms. From the process-related perspective, the law
19. appears by means of various procedures like the legislative or criminal
20. procedures where legal solutions are formed through the functioning of
21. state bodies and individuals.
22. In this text, I will discuss politics in its broadest meaning, primarily
23. encompassing the process-related sense, which also includes various
24. policies and polities. I will define law as the binding value-normative
25. system established and carried out by, the state in national law and
26. carried out by international organizations and institutions in international
27. law, which are intended for the establishment and maintenance of a
28. balance between justice and order and solving and preventing pressing
29. societal and international conflicts.
30. The relation between politics and law has both a progressive function
31. and a safeguarding function. Law and politics, separately or together,
32. both encourage and suppress the development of societal relations, while
33. they both also function to bring about justice and order. The essence of
34. their “separate and connected” but not integral existence is to help set
35. each other’s borders. These borders prevent excessive one-sidedness in
36. politics or the law, similar to a “checks and balances” mechanism. In
37. actuality, all legal institutes are a partial reflection of individual or
38. collective political decisions at a certain time and in a certain
39. environment, which have assumed a legal form and nature. This is true in
40. systems where the main rule-framer is an extremely politically
41. legitimized body (e.g. the parliament as legislature) and also in systems