Title: Remarks by an Idealist on the Realism of 'The Limits of International Law'
Abstract: This paper is a response to Jack L. Goldsmith and Eric A. Posner, 'The Limits of International Law' (Oxford 2005), part of a symposium on the book held at the University of Georgia School in October 2005. review views 'The Limits of International Law' sympathetically, and focuses on the intersection between traditional and new methodologies of international law scholarship, on the one hand, and the substantive political commitments that differing international law scholars hold, on the other. paper notes that some in the symposium claim that the problem with 'The Limits of International Law' is that it improperly conflates the new rationalist methodologies of international law, such as rational choice theory, with substantive political outcomes in international law - particularly attachment to the sovereignty of states, as against the preferred political outcome of traditional international law scholars, liberal internationalism. paper argues, however, that the rationalist methodology of 'The Limits of International Law', if successful, essentially undercuts the substantive political claims of liberal internationalism, by denying to it the claim that the international legal order exercises an exogenous pull upon the behavior of states. If the rationalist methodology of 'The Limits of International Law' is successful, then the substantive political position of democratic sovereignty (rather than liberal internationalism) is effectively the last man standing as the bearer of idealist values in international law - there will be no point to considering liberal internationalism because it would exert no exogenous pull upon state behavior beyond what states would otherwise exhibit, whether from state interest or from a state's ideals and values. stakes for the rationalist methodology are therefore considerable because the rational choice methodology of The Limits of International Law bears directly upon what substantive political positions are available as vehicles for values and ideals in the international order. paper also notes that the whole debate as to whether international law exerts an exogenous tug upon the behavior of states has a curious resemblance to debates in the philosophy of mind and intention - to the writings of analytic philosophers Gilbert Ryle and Elizabeth Anscombe - over the 'ghost in the machine' of intention and behaviorist skepticism about the ghost in the machine. International law's new rationalist methods thus somewhat resemble behaviorism's attempt the strip the ghost out of the machine, stripping the ghost of the exogenous pull and tug of international out of the machine by showing that it is, examined closely enough, simply a manifestation of state interest.
Publication Year: 2006
Publication Date: 2006-04-21
Language: en
Type: article
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Cited By Count: 1
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