Thinking about International Law: A Call for Action - Monica Hakimi

About the Lecture 

As is now widely recognized, the international legal and political order is being radically transformed, creating a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reconstitute its basic foundations. A lot is therefore at stake in the contest over what comes next. A significant problem, I will argue, is that the dominant theories about international law now in circulation do not provide the analytic foundation we need to think clearly about the path forward. These theories—which, for ease of reference, I will call “formal,” “realist,” “rational,” and “critical”—to some extent compete for preeminence in the international legal imagination. Each offers a slightly different take on whether, when, how, or for whom international law can be made to work. But as I will show, they are all variants of the same theory, originally proffered to justify the law issued by a single, sovereign state. This theory is specious even for contemporary domestic law and becomes all the more so when transplanted, through its various offshoots, to international law. It infects how many analysts approach the field. Clearing the ground of it creates the conceptual space we need to analyze the problems and possibilities that we now confront.

 

About the Speaker

Monica Hakimi is the William S. Beinecke Professor of Law at Columbia Law School and co-editor-in-chief of the American Journal of International Law. She recently received the Humboldt Research Award to recognize her significant contributions to and beyond the field of international law.

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