State Civil Disobedience and international society

This article examines the concept of State Civil Disobedience (SCD) in the context of international society. It is argued that SCD is problematic for several reasons. First, that SCD is extremely difficult to practice in an association such as international society, relying, as it does, a great deal on the policies and powers of a few dominating actors; second, that the unequal status of states makes SCD mainly an instrument of the strong, hence undermining not only the idea of civil disobedience as the strategy of the weak but also questioning the role of SCD within an international society based on the formal equality of states. It is concluded that the practice of SCD in international society requires an invigoration of international society as a moral association. A more practical alternative, it is argued, is to conceive of a limited concept of SCD confined largely to non-violent means and preferably practiced in order to resist legal anomalies.