“To cite but a few examples, in the Corfu Channel case, the International Court of Justice found that the use of indirect evidence, in addition to being admitted in “all systems of law”, was “recognized by international decisions”. 44 In Pedra Branca/Pulau Batu Puteh, the Court similarly noted that “[i]t is a general principle of law, confirmed by the jurisprudence of this Court, that a party which advances a point of fact in support of its claims must establish that fact”. 45 In the Chagos Marine Protected Area arbitration, the tribunal noted that the “frequent invocation [of the principle of estoppel] in international proceedings has added definition to the scope of the principle”. 4… The European Court of Human Rights and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights have likewise relied on prior decisions to justify the existence of the principle iura novitcuria. 47 In international criminal law, prior decisions by international courts and tribunals have also played a significant role in the identification of general principles of law.48″ … “27 A general principle of law that is often referred to in practice and in the literature, and which may be considered to be of a general and abstract character, is the principle of good faith. …
28 Examples of general principles of law that have been invoked or applied in practice, and which may be considered to be of a more specific character (because they present, for instance, precise conditions for their application), include the principles of res judicata and lis pendens, and the right to lawyer-client confidentiality. See, respectively, International Court of Justice, Question of the Delimitation of the Continental Shelf between Nicaragua and Colombia beyond 200 Nautical Miles from the Nicaraguan Coast (Nicaragua v. Colombia), Preliminary Objections, Judgment, I.C.J. Reports 2016, p. 100, at pp. 125–126, paras. 58–61; Permanent Court of International Justice, Certain German Interests in Polish Upper Silesia, Judgment, 25 August 1925, P.C.I.J. Series A, No. 6, pp. 5 et seq., at p. 20; International Court of Justice, Questions relating to the Seizure and Detention of Certain Documents and Data (Timor‐Leste v. Australia), Provisional” .. “Examples of such general principles of law may include pacta sunt servanda, good faith, the principles of lex specialis and lex posterior, respect for human dignity and elementary considerations of humanity.” [↩]
Adapted from an forthcoming article by Hans-Hermann Hoppe:
… concerning [Javier] Milei and the (non-)closure of Argentina’s central bank” … He has also introduced some economic “free market” reforms in Argentina that have been inspired by “Austrians.” But he has done nothing truly radical, deserving the praise of any anarcho-capitalist. He has not closed the central bank, as originally promised, and there are no signs that this will happen any time soon. He has brought consumer price inflation down from 300% to some 30% (wow!), but the money supply (of all monetary aggregates) has continued to grow rapidly (even more so than under several of his predecessors). He has centralized rather than decentralized government power and is on record as being fundamentally opposed to secession. In addition to assuming (rather than repudiating, as Rothbard would have recommended; see below) the existing government debt owed to the IMF of some 40 billion USD, he burdened the Argentinian people with another 42 billion USD of debt, solicited from the IMF, the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank, and in order to avoid insolvency right before the Argentinian mid-term election, in October 2025, he further required a rescue package of some 20 billion USD from “his dear friend” Donald Trump. [continue reading…]
I recently put the Liberty archives online and was browsing through old issues, most of which I had read when I used to subscribe to the print edition. One that caught my eye was Sheldon Richman, “The Absurdity of Alienable Rights” (January, 1989, p. 50). This article was in response to Ethan O. Waters (the pseudonym for R.W. Bradford), 1 “Reflections on the Apostasy of Robert Nozick” (September-October, 1987), p. 14). 2[continue reading…]
Bradford revisits this gedankenexperiment in Bradford, “At Liberty” (September, 1997), p.23; see also n.4; and see also Michael R. Edelstein, “Existence Exists, Slavery Enslaves” (letter) (May, 1989), p.6; Andrew B. Lewis, “Ghost Dancing With “Inalienable” Rights” (May, 1989), p. 27. [↩]
Libertarianism is the social philosophy that identifies individual liberty as the most fundamental social value and, by extension, treats voluntary cooperation as the only morally permissible form of social interaction. This succinct work addresses some common doubts about libertarian theory centered around the claim that it has to balance its excessive moral ambition with the requisite degree of „realism”, „practicality”, and “compromising”. To that extent, it addresses subjects ranging from the usefulness of ethical principles, to the feasibility of efficient interventionism, to the stability of libertarian anarchy. In other words, its aim is to suggest that the libertarian philosophy is not only theoretically rigorous and practically relevant, but also eminently feasible in strictly pragmatic terms.
Reinterpreting Libertarianism: New Directions in Libertarian Studies, Edited by Łukasz Dominiak, Igor Wysocki, Stanisław Wójtowicz, and Dawid Megger (2026, Routledge). I was just alerted to this book and have not read it yet, but it looks very interesting, from the excerpt and table of contents available here (pdf). It is focused on Polish libertarian scholarship and seems to be influenced by the Rothbardian-Austro-libertarian tradition (Dominiak and Wysocki, two of the volume’s editors, have been published previously in my journal Libertarian Papers, 1 as has another Polish libertarian (and a member of the journal’s Editorial Board), Jakub Bozydar Wisniewski (not a contributor to this volume), 2 and Dominiak and Slenzok, another contributor, have also published in the Journal of Libertarian Studies, revived in the wake of Libertarian Papers. It appears to discuss my work and that of Hans-Hermann Hoppe fairly extensively, if the index is any indication (see screenshot from the Kindle edition), which is a good sign.
This volume provides a thorough reconsideration of libertarian theory, offering novel perspectives that challenge established assumptions and initiate new directions for philosophical, legal and economic investigation. [continue reading…]
A 1987 article in Liberty Magazine, John C. Green & James L. Guth, “The Sociology of Libertarians,” Liberty (September-October, 1987), p. 5, inspired a poll in the July, 1988 issue, “The Liberty Poll: Who We Are and What We Think” (p. 37) which queried readers on various beliefs and six “moral problems.” That issue also included comments by Liberty‘s editors, “The Meaning of the Liberty Poll” (p. 49), including a comment by Rothbard, “What’s Wrong with the Liberty Poll; or, How I Became a Libertarian,” Liberty (July, 1998), p. 52.
This was followed up by a second poll in the February, 1999 issue, “The Liberty Poll” (p. 11), and ten years later in the June, 2008 issue with a third poll. See Mark Rand, “The Liberty Poll Results: Who We Are and What We Think,” Liberty (June, 2008), p. 29.
Ross Overbeek, “Moral Absolutes, Truth, and Liberty,” also writing in the June, 2008 issue, summarized the polls’ six ethical dilemmas: [continue reading…]
Most of us principled, anti-state libertarians are deed admirers of Rothbard. Hoppe has written glowingly of Rothbard’s singular genius, assessment I share. As Hoppe has written,
And there was a certain amount of, I would say, jealousy, because, I mean, Rothbard was enormously bright. I’ve met bright people in my life, but the only person I’ve met whom I would consider to be a genius was Rothbard. He could tell you the the content of every book in his library. And that wasan enormous library. Whenever you would ask him about any strange subject, he could give you some suggestions on what to read. You felt like a little, urn, uneducated person if you talked to him. So jealousy played a big role in explaining why it was that he was not treated like a genius, as he should have been treated. [continue reading…]
PFS 2026, the Annual Meeting of the Property and Freedom Society, hosted by Drs. Gülçin & Hans Hoppe, will be held in Bodrum, Turkey, at the Hotel Karia Princess from Thursday, September 17, 2026to Tuesday, September 22, 2026. As the inaugural meeting was held in 2006 and the 2020 meeting was canceled due to covid restrictions, this will be the twentieth annual meeting of the PFS held over the past twenty years. [continue reading…]
For years I’ve remembered Woody Allen was rumored to have said he once visited the country but didn’t like it because there was no scenery. But internet searches could not find or verify this.
I just happened to stumble across it in Richard Kostelanetz, “I’ll Take Manhattan,” Liberty (Jan. 1995) (pdf), pp. 43–44. Sub-titled “City air makes men free,” it has the line I’ve been remembering all these years: [continue reading…]
Recent Comments