The Nature of International Law

Miodrag A. Jovanović

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9781108473330
• eBook ISBN: 9781108636353
• Topic: Droit
• Subtopic: Jurisprudence

Jurisprudence has up until recently largely neglected international law as a subject of philosophizing. The Nature of International Law tries to offset against this deficiency by providing a comprehensive explanatory account of international law. It does so within an analytical tradition, albeit within the one which departs from the nowadays dominant method of the metaphysically-driven conceptual analysis. Instead, it adopts the prototype theory of concepts, which is directed towards determining typical features constitutive of the nature of international law. The book's central finding is that those features are: normativity, institutionalization, coercive guaranteeing, and justice-aptness. Since typical features are context sensitive, their specificities at the international level are further elucidated. The book, finally, challenges the often raised claim that fragmentation is international law's unique feature by demonstrating that international institutional actors, particularly adjudicative ones, largely perceive themselves as officials of a unified legal order.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title page
• Series page
• Title page
• Copyright page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1 International Law as a Subject Matter of Legal Philosophy – A Brief Historical Overview
• 2 In Search of the Nature of (International) Law – Methodological Postulates
• 3 Typical Features of (International) Law
• 4 International Law as a Normative Order
• 5 International Law as an Institutionalized and (Coercively) Guaranteed Order
• 6 Justice-Aptness of International Law
• 7 Fragmentation – A Special Feature of International Law?
• Bibliography
• Index