International territorial administration is not only an accumulation of individual undertakings in governance and administration from Versailles to Iraq, but also part of a process of transformation of the international legal order as such.

In this context, international administration has revealed the conflicting sides of normative change: it is rooted in a cosmopolitan tradition of thought to the extent that it seeks to create conditions for a stable and humane universal order, in which state interests are balanced against certain communitarian interests and fundamental human rights and freedoms. But it has at the same time created new forms of dependencies and novel contradictions which undermine its cause.

This dichotomy is reflected in three areas: the treatment of the principle of the neutrality, the conception of state sovereignty and the vision of the role of international administration.

International territorial administration and neutrality vis-à-vis the internal realm of a constituency

International territorial administration marks one of the areas in which international institutions have penetrated the domestic sphere of societies, which was traditionally outside the scope of international law. This practice was motivated by ideological and humanitarian considerations and the will to do “good”. To end autocratic rule and to foster “good governance” has become part of the vocabulary of progress in international law. But it has also caused tensions and antinomies, in particular in the areas of state- or nationbuilding.