Sources and the Systematicity of International Law

This chapter addresses a range of questions about the systematicity of sources of international law. What does it mean to say that international law’s sources form a legal system or not? Is there more than one way in which international law’s sources might or might not form a legal system? Must there be an international legal system for there to be sources of international law at all? How are we to distinguish between claims of systematicity which are of a descriptive-explanatory nature from those that are aspirational, and is there a connection between these two types of questions? The chapter takes up these questions and others from the perspective of analytical legal theory. It explains that there are certain costs when it comes to thinking about the sources of international law in terms of the idea of legal system.

Comparative law · Empirical legal studies · International law · International legal system · Law and economics · Legal profession · Municipal law · Perspective (graphical) · Philosophy of law · Political science · Public international law · Sociology · Sources of international law · International Arbitration and Investment Law · International Law and Human Rights · Law · Mathematics