Law Commons^™

How International Is 'International' Law?, Kurt Taylor Gaubatz, Matthew Macarthur

Michigan Journal of International Law

The international legal community posits universality as a central characteristic of modern international law. But there has been little work to assess the degree to which international legal norms are widely shared and incorporated into the foreign policy-making of states. Previous work in this area has attempted to describe the distribution of legal values across cultures. This work has proven contradictory and inconclusive. The epistemic communities literature suggests looking at the distribution of practitioners as an alternative approach for assessing the diffusion of norms and practices. In fact, the community of litigators who practice before the International Court of Justice …