It has recently been suggested that the study of international legal life should take an ‘empirical turn’: a turn which has often focused on how patterns of authority emerge and operate in relation to international courts. In what follows it is argued that this empiricism fails to distinguish (for the purposes of sociological inquiry) authority from various other concepts such as power or consensus in the study of international law and courts. This is because this method focuses only on overt signs, such as observable action or statements of intention, and at the level of the sign these concepts are not obviously distinguishable. However, one solution to this problem, which is to collapse socially significant and distinct categories such as authority and consensus into a broad category of ‘power’, requires the adoption of an implausible and inconsistent view of agency in explanations of legal authority. By contrast, and in line with the long-standing interpretivist tradition in sociological and legal method, we claim that in order to interpret the observable signs of compliance to international legal rules and principles as indicative of authority, consensus, or power, it is necessary to interpolate an account of the reasons which give rise to the compliance we observe. This, in turn, explains why international legal doctrine, as an axiological structure, gives rise to the behaviour of its addressees, such as state officials.

Interdisciplinary scholarship at the intersection of international law (IL) and International Relations (IR) has illuminated the roles of politics in law, of law in politics, and of the shifting boundary between the two in various areas of international affairs. The boundary itself, however, has proven resilient. While critical approaches investigating the politics of international law have come to insist on the lasting significance of legality proper, IR approaches to legalization have returned to politics. Although the apparent limits to challenging the boundary between legality and politics are not new, we suggest that they are intimately related to another great divide, i.e., that between the state and the international. Together, these two cross-cutting lines have shaped the possibilities and constraints of articulating substantive positions ‘in’ (international) law and politics at least since the Interwar period. Reading these distinctions as intertwined ‘nested oppositions’, this article reconstructs the stylized but paradigmatic debates between Max Weber and Hans Kelsen over the nature of the state and between Hans Morgenthau and Hersch Lauterpacht over the nature of the international. We further illustrate how the same conceptual oppositions still enable and constrain current debates in IL and IR, discussing as examples the creation of states and the justiciability of international crimes. Crossing and contesting the boundaries ultimately reaffirms them as the matrix in which conflicts over states and the international are articulated as legal and political.

This article examines the limits that academics from peripheral countries might encounter while trying to influence the decision-making process inside an international organization. Although there are different mechanisms whereby academia might influence non-academic debates, we highlight here the use of policy papers, in order to examine and discuss the non-textual barriers which might be faced by those academics. After an analysis of primary sources this article presents some pragmatic limits in the use of policy papers and discusses the consequences of this condition for the legitimation of international organizations. As such, relevant international organizations still seem to be unresponsive to some initiatives in particular: closed to the spontaneous participation of academia; and not willing to call for contributions from academic communities. This is particularly relevant for contributions from peripheral academia and other non-state actors, who lack the capability to disturb the traditional ideational power exercised by core (Western) countries and by state-centric ideology in current international law.

This article sets out the major tenets of new materialism and maps out its implications for international law. It considers what new materialism might offer for those of us working within international law in the way of new insights, resources, practices or politics. It first sets the contours of new materialism within the broader material turn. It then elaborates three main tenets of new materialism’s methodology, theory, and ontology: its attention to matter in its physicality; the embedded and entangled subject; and the vitality or agency of objects. The article focuses on how new materialist work might help us to understand, first, subjectivity and second, power and accountability in international law. It concludes that new materialist approaches offer important and compelling insights, working against entrenched categories and structures that continue to perpetuate or excuse violence and harm in international law’s doctrines and practices. These insights provide resources for rethinking power and subjectivity, and the role these play in international law. However, those of us working to consider how we can respond to pressing crises of justice and coexistence within international law may find new materialism most powerful when brought into relation, and deep conversation, with more structural methodologies. Notably ‘older’ (Marxist or historical) materialisms grasp embedded power relations and deep-rooted systemic harms in more concrete ways. This is, the article concludes, a conversation that international law scholars are well placed to contribute to, deepening both ‘old’ and ‘new’ materialist insights for international law.

The Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of the United Nations Human Rights Council is an innovative monitoring mechanism in the international human rights law system. As the UPR matures, scholars have increasingly sought to stand back and understand it as a process. In this article, I take work in this vein further by considering more closely the actors involved in the UPR – humans and objects – and highlighting the time creating effects that emerge from the relationships between them. Across the various stages of the UPR, a range of temporalities – from cyclicality and linearity to retrogression and suspension of time – are produced and sustained by people, reports, data, lists, microphones, screens, computers, action plans, and desks, just to name a few. I argue from this that time is materially made in the review process, often in micro and taken for granted ways. In its operation, the UPR appears as a collection of temporal assemblages. Or, in language drawn from actor-network theory (ANT), an assortment of fluid and interweaving sets of actants networked together who generate ideas of time across its practice. Apprehending time creation in this material, the ANT-inflected way is highly significant for scholars and practitioners interested in the UPR. It holds potential to influence how this process can be understood, approached, and located within international human rights law as itself a larger, time creating actor-network.

Since the end of the Cold War, the content, scope, and extent of extraterritorial human rights obligations has become a pressing concern for international lawyers. On one end of the debate, mainstream scholarship argues that jurisdiction is primarily territorial, identifying a limited range of situations in which jurisdiction (and responsibility) is triggered. On the other end, critical scholars suggest that Empire still haunts jurisdiction. By reconstructing the history of this doctrine, they show that the imperial reach has always been extra-territorial and that the intimate linkage between state, territory, and population is of a rather recent and tenuous origin. In both of these narratives, however, lies the assumption that jurisdiction operates as a secularized power. Even if empires/states were once religious, faith’s legacy remains confined to the past. In this article, conversely, I trace a critical genealogy of Christian authority as a jurisdictional structure, in which territoriality was never presumed. After all, one cannot forget that Catholicism and Universalism were forged in the same etymological crucible. By drawing from Foucault’s analysis of pastoral power, I argue that international law has deep roots in Christianity’s claims of governmentality upon ‘men and souls’ instead of over defined territories.

This article maps the legally varied sovereignty claims in the contemporary South Pacific; whether secessionist, self-determination based, or consisting of territorial disputes or lesser disagreements. The analysis reveals that Pacific practice in this domain is consistent with general international law; that despite any fractures at the domestic level, relations between the states and territories of the region is peaceful, that their shared values have instead given rise to innovative solutions to legal problems concerning territory, either through the leveraging of regional institutions – so vital to the region’s identity – to pursue claims against metropolitan powers, or through innovative arrangements to alleviate territorial problems left by colonial powers. Indeed, the region is replete with innovative legal solutions based on shared values and peaceful international relations. As such, Pacific practice and engagement with international law can provide a blueprint for others around the globe.

This article identifies the essential differences between public and private adjudication and their implications for the legitimacy and efficiency of dispute resolution institutions, as well as the rule of law. Public adjudication comes at a significant cost for the taxpayers but helps secure a consistent body of case law, promotes public policy goals, and allows third parties to know the rules of conduct in advance to prevent undesirable activities. This article shows that procedural rules of these institutions (regardless of whether the procedure is called adjudication or arbitration) differ when it comes to the appointment of adjudicators, their professional background, and how long they serve. Public and private institutions consistently follow different approaches to transparency and confidentiality of proceedings, the application of primarily substantive rules or principles to resolve disagreements, and the extent to which decisions can be reviewed internally or externally. By examining the procedural rules and practices of selected institutions, the article asserts three main claims. First, the choice of public or private adjudication is likely to lead to different procedural outcomes, including the cost of the process and the duration. Second, the legitimacy of any dispute resolution system must rest on both procedural and substantive aspects, while in reality these two are often viewed in isolation. Finally, the article shows how institutions could learn from each other to become more efficient and strengthen their legitimacy.

Previous research has analysed a range of domestic stakeholders that make national governments’ commitments to international human rights law credible, including an independent judiciary, legislative veto players, political opposition groups, and non-governmental organizations. But how do the power dynamics within the government affect state compliance with international human rights law? Building on the basic understanding that international human rights law needs to pass through domestic political and administrative processes before it can be implemented on the ground, this article articulates a reputation-based theoretical framework to explain how the lack of reputational mechanisms at the local level and national leaders’ shifting of blame for non-compliance to sub-national officials and the internal governance structure – two salient characteristics in a decentralized political system – make international human rights law less effective. A case study of US compliance with Article 36 of the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations sheds light on how international reputational concerns interact with divided authority structure to shape national leaders’ and subnational authorities’ policy responses to the enforcement of international human rights standards.

Commentators now regularly declare that the International Criminal court (ICC) – and international criminal law as a whole – is in crisis. It is certainly the case that the ICC faces a number of operational challenges, and that these challenges worry its defenders. However, one unexamined rationalist assumption is that the Court’s inability to deliver consistent outputs will mean waning influence. This article explores an alternative constructivist theory that the ICC produces diffuse social impacts that are not necessarily tied to its operating effectively. This theory is tested statistically using Google Trends data. Specifically, the article examines whether ICC intervention in a country is associated with more internet search for ‘human rights’. Taking this to be a measure of changing discourse in countries, the article finds that some types of ICC involvement are associated with a far higher interest in human rights, and that this interest only increases as ICC involvement extends in time. In short, despite its disappointments, evidence suggests that the ICC still serves a socio-pedagogical function. Though it does not fit well within a rational evaluation framework, this kind of information should be considered in ICC performance reviews.

More than 20 years on from the signing of the Rome Statute, delivering victim-centred justice through reparations has been fraught with legal and practical challenges. The Court’s jurisprudence on reparations only began to emerge from 2012 and struggles to find purchase on implementation on the ground. In its first few cases of Lubanga, Katanga, and Al Mahdi the eligibility and forms of reparations have been limited to certain victims, subject to years of litigation, and faced difficulties in delivery due to ongoing insecurity. This is perhaps felt most acutely in the Bemba case, where more than 5,000 victims of murder, rape and pillage were waiting for redress, and the defendant was not indigent, but where he was later acquitted on appeal, thereby extinguishing reparation proceedings. This article critically appraises the jurisprudence and practice of the International Criminal Court (ICC) on reparations. It looks at competing principles and rationales for reparations at the Court in light of comparative practice in international human rights law and transitional justice processes to consider what is needed to ensure that the ICC is able to deliver on its reparations mandate. An underpinning argument is that reparations at the ICC cannot be seen in isolation from other reparation practices in the states where the Court operates. Reparative complementarity for victims of international crimes is essential to maximize the positive impact that the fulfilment of this right can have on victims and not to sacrifice the legitimacy of the Court, nor quixotically strive for the impossible.