The Limits of International Law and The Politics of International Law

The Limits of International Law. By Jack L. Goldsmith and Eric A. Posner. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. 272p. $29.95. The Politics of International Law. Edited by Christian Reus-Smit. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004. 344p. $75.00 cloth, $29.99 paper. Is international law really law? If it is law, is it effective in constraining state behavior against interest? These two questions have vexed international lawyers and those international relations scholars interested in international law who until the last 15 years or so were relatively few in number. There has been a proliferation of scholarship on these questions, and on bridging the gap between international relations and international law (IL). (To note only one recent survey piece, see Anne-Marie Slaughter, Andrew Tulumello, and Stephan Wood, “International Law and International Relations Theory: A New Generation of Interdisciplinary scholarship,” American Journal of International Law 92 [July 1998]: 367–397)

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