Non-recognition as the pioneer solidarity tool for the preservation of the international legal order

Abstract

This work aims to present a new legal-historical conceptualization of the period 1919-1945, stressing that under the ‘new law’ of the Covenant of the League of Nations and of the Treaty for the Renunciation of War, States acted in the interests of the community of nations and not anymore solely in their own national interests. Not only States prohibited to a large extent recourse to armed force in international relations, but they established an obligation not to recognize as lawful the results of illegal claims to sovereignty. The doctrine of non-recognition proved to be significant in consolidating a new international order and in vindicating the force of law against the force of arms in the path leading to the creation of the United Nations.