Sources in the Anti-Formalist Tradition

This chapter explores the dialectics of international customary law. It argues that custom is at once a sheet anchor of public international law and its rope of sand as well. The chapter discusses aspects of chapter 9, the Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL) contexts of ‘custom’ as the source of international law norms and standards, the jusnaturalist invocation of custom, and the idea of a ‘future’ custom. In addition, the chapter argues that much of the TWAIL thought about resistance and renewal stands to be redirected to the varieties of imperial legal positivisms. It also asks whether the UN Charter principle-and-purposes-centric perspective is a perspective more relevant to our reconceptualization of the role of custom as a source for a future international law.

Art · Charter · Dialectic · Epistemology · International law · Invocation · Islam · Law and economics · Perspective (graphical) · Political science · Sharia · Sociology · International Law and Human Rights · Law · Philosophy