Time and Law Revisited: International Law and the Temporal Dimension

The incidence of the temporal dimension on International Law is acknowledged in face of new needs of protection of human beings, also in a preventive way. Awareness of such temporal dimension bears witness of the myopia of political " realism " and draws attention to the human quest for justice throughout history. The study of International Law, bearing in mind the ineluctable relation between time and law, discloses the shortcomings of the positivist-voluntarist conception of International Law, which proved incapable of explaining the historical formation and evolution of customary rules of general International Law. Th e central issue of the relation between time and law is, in fact, inherent to the very birth and exercise of individual rights. All the international case-law pertaining to human rights has developed, in a converging way, throughout the last decades, a dynamic or evolutive interpretation of the treaties of protection.Keywords:case-law; human rights; international law; realism; temporal dimension; time