ABSTRACT
Many of the problems surrounding self-defence (Chapter 2) are insurmountable within the framework of the conventional debate on substantive law. Here we will transcend this debate and explore why an answer to many of the problems cannot be given. The Charter law of self-defence is concerned with the text of an international treaty, so interpretation is the first method to look to when searching for a text’s meaning. Accordingly, most of the following is concerned with our understanding of that particular method. But interpretation is not the sole structural reason for uncertainty in seeking to understand the self-defence law of the UN Charter. Subsumption – matching facts (Sachverhalt) and norms (Tatbestand ) – is plagued by vagueness, as exemplified by the ‘How-much-hair-spoils-a-baldhead’ ( falakros) problem (Section 4.3.2).1 Also, it is commonly held that behaviour after a treaty is concluded influences how it ought to be interpreted and can even change the treaty norm, which raises theoretical problems as well (Section 4.4). This issue in particular is intimately connected to international law’s ‘constitutional problems’ (Chapter 6). All the problems discussed herein are interlinked and form the complex of phenomena that can be described as uncertainty.
