In the perennial debate over whether the dependence of international law on power is complete or whether international law maintains some independence for itself, the latter position is increasingly and at best marginal. Here that direction of the debate is reversed. The very dependence of international law on power is integral to a relation of mutual dependence between them. It is in this relation that power constituently depends on an international law which, in its turn, contains a primal efficacy. That efficacy is illustrated in its countering the claims of American empire.