From Apology to Utopia: The Structure of International Legal Argument

Abstract

This book presents a critical view of international law as an argument- ative practice that aims to ‘depoliticise’ international relations. Drawing from a wide range of materials, Koskenniemi demonstrates how this effort fails as international law becomes vulnerable to the contrasting criticisms of being either an irrelevantmoralist Utopia or a manipulable fac¸ade for State interests. He examines the conflicts and paradoxes inherent in the main strands of international law – sources, sovereignty, ‘custom’ and ‘world order’ – and shows how legal discourse about such subjects can be described in terms of a small number of argumentative rules. From Apology to Utopia was originally published in English in Finland in 1989, and though it quickly became a classic, it has been out of print for some years. Cambridge University Press is proud to reissue this seminal text, together with a substantial, freshly written Epilogue in which the author both responds to critics of the original work, and reflects on the effect and significance of his ‘deconstructive’ approach today.