Send back the Lifeboats: Confronting the Project of Saving International Law

Abstract

The idea that international law is in crisis—needing the inspired thinking and skilled practice of many kinds of international lawyers to save it—has a rich history in those countries where the enterprise of international law has been most deeply established and embraced. Unsurprisingly, saving international law remains a project shared by many twenty-first-century international lawyers. Such a commitment is certainly not confined to legal academics. Even some legal advisers, counsel, judges, and activists think of themselves as having a role to play in rescuing international law. Being a disengaged bystander while grave hazards supposedly threaten international law has not seemed to be a proper option for many of these professionals who share a calling for heroic self-sacrifice to salvage the ostensibly endangered entity of international law.