The Pen is Mightier than the H-Bomb

Abstract

Through discourse analysis of interviews with United Nations Security Council diplomats, this essay attempts to deconstruct the binary that opposes power politics and international law and morality. It intends to show that the context (or ‘conditions’) of production of UNSC documents – international law – does not counterbalance the hierarchies that define international power politics, but depends on and reinforces such hierarchies. International law makes the privileged position of some members more acceptable even in a context where the ideal of nations’ self-determination and democracy would seem to demand otherwise. It also allows the most powerful to determine what is to be considered fundamental for the international community, and who is to be constrained by force in these contexts, with important material effects.