The Advancement of International Law

This book is arranged into three sections. The first purports to show from the specific example of international investment law that the past half-century has seen the invention of two genuinely new techniques in positive law: state contracts and transnational arbitration without privity. This is "advancement" in international law not because the techniques are "good" in themselves (one may well think them "bad") but because they have introduced legal possibilities into international law that did not exist heretofore. The second section examines the theoretical consequences of those new legal techniques and especially the way they affect the theory of the state. The third widens the field of view and asks whether European law has surpassed international law in a move towards federalism or whether it represents a step forward for international law. These reflections make for a clearer theoretical understanding of what constitutes true advancement in international law. Such an understanding should give pause both to those who argue that hardly any progress has been made, and to those who are overly fanciful about progress.