1 By nonreductionist, the author means that his proposed definition “refuses to interpret the actions or norms of one particular type of agent, such as states, as definitive of international law in its entirety” (pp. 29–30). He contrasts this definition with, for example, the “sovereignty thesis,” which reduces international law to the “set of rules that hold between sovereign political bodies, usually states” (p. 56). See also Bix, Brian Legal Positivism, in The Blackwell Guide to the Philosophy of Law and Legal Theory 34 (Golding, Martin P. & Edmunson, William A. eds., 2005)Google Scholar (describing Austin’s reduction of all law to commands of the sovereign and Kelsen’s reduction of law to “an authorization to an official to impose sanctions”).

2 Legal positivism subsumes a broad variety of theories about law, see Bix, supra note 1, at 29–35, but in international law it has been described, in part, as the idea that law is “a unified system of rules” in which “all norms derive their pedigree from one of the traditional sources of international law, custom and treaty.” Simma, Bruno & Paulus, Andreas L. The Responsibility of Individuals for Human Rights Abuses in Internal Conflicts: A Positivist View, in The Methods of International Law 23, 26–27 (Ratner, Steven R. & Slaughter, Anne Marie eds., 2006)Google Scholar.

3 Constructivism posits that “ideas . . . construct the social environment which, in turn, constitutes the identities and interests of states.” Hathaway, Oona A. & Koh, Harold Hongju Foundations of International Law and Politics 111 (2005)Google Scholar.

4 Of special relevance here is Louis Henkin, How Nations Behave (2d ed. 1979).

5 See, in particular, Koh, Harold Hongju Why Do Nations Obey International Law? 106 Yale L.J. 2599 (1997)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Koh, Harold Hongju Transnational Legal Process, 75 Neb. L. Rev. 181 (1996)Google Scholar.

6 Bederman, David J. International Law Frameworks 6 (2d ed. 2006)Google Scholar.

7 See Henkin, supra note 4, at 39.

8 From another and, I think, deeper perspective, however, this statement is misguided. Theory is not antithetical, but essential, to effective practice. Harold Hongju Koh, presently legal adviser to the U.S. State Department and a longtime practitioner and scholar of international law, often remarks, in a felicitous maxim that he attributes to his father, “Theory without practice is as lifeless as practice without theory is thoughtless.” Koh, Harold Hongju A United States Human Rights Policy for the 21st Century, 46 St. Louis U. L.J. 293, 330 (2002)Google Scholar.

9 Letter from John Bellinger III, Legal Adviser, U.S. Dep’t of State, and Haynes, William J. General Counsel, U.S. Dep’t of Defense, to Jakob Kellenberger, President, International Committee of the Red Cross, Regarding Customary International Law Study (Nov. 3, 2006), 46 ILM 514 (2007)Google Scholar.

10 Hersch Lauterpacht said, in words with clear resonance here, that “if international law is, in some ways, at the vanishing point of law, the law of war is, perhaps even more conspicuously, at the vanishing point of international law.” Hersch, Lauterpacht The Problem of the Revision of the Law of War, 1952 Brit.Yb.Int’l L. 360, 382 Google Scholar.

11 See, e.g., Henkin, supra note 4, at 90; Louis Henkin, International Law: Politics and Values 3 (1995); W. Michael Reisman, Law from the Policy Perspective, in International Law Essays 1, 6–7 (Myres S. McDougal & W. Michael Reisman eds., 1981). See generally Kaplan, Morton A. & Katzenbach, Nicholas D. the Political Foundations of International Law (1961)Google Scholar

12 Those “in the know” include “practicing international lawyers, judges, and other international legal experts,” but not “international legal theorists such as Grotius, Vattel, and so on”; the latter do not engage “in the social practice” that, in the author’s view, defines international law today (p. 37) (presumably they once did?). The author appears to have in mind something like Oscar Schachter’s “invisible college.” Oscar, Schachter The Invisible College of International Lawyers, 72 Nw.U.L. Rev. 217 (1977)Google Scholar.

13 Hart, H. L. A. the Concept of Law 231–37 (1961)Google Scholar. Hart argued that international law, while replete with primary legal rules and therefore not properly described as mere “positive morality,” John Austin, the Province of Jurisprudence Determined and the Uses of the Study of Jurisprudence 142 (1954) (1832), lacks the reliable criteria of legal validity and authoritative change that characterize mature legal systems.

14 See, e.g., Hart’s Postscript: Essays on the Postscript to the Concept of Law (Jules Coleman ed., 2001); Joseph, Raz the Authority of Law: Essays on Law and Morality (1979)Google Scholar; Jules, Coleman the Practice of Principle: in Defence of a Pragmatist Approach to Legal Theory (2003)Google Scholar.

15 Ronald, Dworkin Taking Rights Seriously 40 (1977)Google Scholar.

16 Oddly, the author excludes NGOs from the class of entities with international legal personality for “one central (and good) reason: these organizations, however noble they may be, are not democratic and do not represent the will of a particular group of people (save those who support its ideology)” (p. 86). This exclusion is odd because the nonreductionist definition, as explained in most of the book, has nothing to do with democratic legitimacy. The author writes that the “basis of authority for international law is not the consent of the people that a legitimate domestic government is obliged to represent, but rather comes from other international bodies with which the government relates” (p. 197). Even more generally, Law at the Vanishing Point says that it offers a purely descriptive, not normative, definition of international law (p. 45) (positing that “there is no deep normative structure to international law”).

17 There is, of course, a rich literature on the subject, with which the author surprisingly does not engage. See, e.g., Franck, Thomas M. the Power of Legitimacy Among Nations (1990)Google Scholar; Daniel, Bodansky The Legitimacy of International Governance: A Coming Challenge for International Environmental Law? 93 AJIL 596 (1999)Google Scholar.

18 Holland, Thomas Erskine The Elements of Jurisprudence 392 (13th ed. 1924)Google Scholar

19 The argument here again echoes Henkin, who, in a similar critique of the demand that international law meet a Kantian conception of law observance, wrote that” [t] oo much is made of the fact that nations act not out of ‘respect for law’ but from fear of the consequences of breaking it.” Henkin, supra note 4, at 92.

20 Compare Koh, Harold Hongju How is International Human Rights Law Enforced? 74 Ind. L.J. 1397, 1406–07 (1999)Google Scholar (making a similar point using the example of how regular compliance with seatbelt laws evolved).

21 See, e.g., Jeremy, Waldron The Rule of International Law, 30 Harv. J.L. & Pub. Pol’y 15 (2006)Google Scholar.

22 Quoted in Patrick Capps, Human Dignity and the Foundations of International Law (2009)Google Scholar.

23 Sloane, Robert D. More Than What Courts Do: Jurisprudence, Decision, and Dignity—in Brief Encounters and Global Affairs, 34 Yale J. Int’l L. 517 (2009)Google Scholar.