The dichotomy of reason and passion is so deeply embedded in the construction of what is ‘legal‘ that it seems difficult even to imagine an international law that would not be entrenched in it. The very identity of international law seems based on its capacity to set itself on the side of reason, in opposition to the passionate, the irrational. Is not reason practically synonymous with order, and passion with chaos? And what is law for if not to bring about order, and to allow exit from our slavery under passion? Is not reason what is universal and objective, while passion is particular and subjective? And is it not then the case that a law pretending to universality must perforce align itself with the forces of reason?