International law provides legal philosophers with both a distinctive practice of government against which to test their theories and a source of inspiration for new conceptions of key legal concepts such as enforcement, authority, justice, the rule of law, and indeed, the concept of law itself. Contributors to this special workshop will engage in one or both of these tasks, taking up questions that concern international legal values and ideals, elements of an international legal order, and/or methodological issues in the philosophy of international law. Attention will also be paid to four types of trends in contemporary international law and politics: political, population, technological, and environmental.

Presenters
David Lefkowitz (University of Richmond, U.S.)
Nicole Roughan (University of Auckland – Waipapa Taumata Rau, New Zealand – Aotearoa)
Evan J. Criddle (William and Mary, U.S.)
Antonia Waltermann (Maastricht University, Netherlands)
Miodrag Jovanović (University of Belgrade, Serbia)

Philosophical Framework
I. International Legal Values and Ideals
a. Peace and stability
b. Sovereignty:
i. Autonomy/Self-Determination/Non-domination
ii. Responsibility (to protect; to citizens or residents; to foreigners)
iii. National security
c. Human Rights
d. Prosperity (Global public goods; economic justice)
e. Repair/Corrective Justice
i. Is the global political community constituted by international law in need of transitional justice? What specific forms might transitional justice take?
ii. What tasks of decolonization remain to be completed? Is IL a suitable tool, or is it too deeply part of the problem?
f. Legitimacy
i. How should we understand the concept of legitimacy? Are there multiple concepts – e.g., one for norms, and one for institutions? How does it relate to (de facto) authority, and/or compliance?
ii. Normatively, what features contribute to or weaken legitimacy? What features are necessary or sufficient for legitimacy?
iii. What counts as good evidence of legitimacy or illegitimacy?
g. Rule of Law
i. How should we understand the international rule of law? What value does it have?
ii. What follows for various actors’ practical reasoning if the international legal order exhibits (in)sufficient fidelity to the rule of law?
iii. How might we strengthen the international rule of law – if doing so is desirable? Can the rule of law be realized in one domain of international law but not another?

II. Elements of an International Legal Order:
a. Legislative (Sources of International Law):
i. Treaties (bi-lateral, regional multi-lateral, global multi-lateral); CIL; General Principles; validity of; normativity of; soft-law; role of non-state actors (including the International Law Commission, and international institutions)
b. Adjudication:
i. Alternative mechanisms for dispute resolution: international courts; arbitration; domestic courts; diplomacy.
ii. Interpretation – different methodologies for different adjudicators? Incompletely theorized agreements? Precedent (de facto or de jure)?)
iii. Role of international courts – dispute settlement; progressive development of the law; binding domestic officials to the mast?
c. Enforcement:
i. Coercion (multi-lateral, unilateral); outcasting (internal, external); monitoring (public agent, private agent); shaming; mobilizing domestic audiences.
ii. How do different forms of enforcement enable or limit what international law can do, or what the international legal order can be?
d. Monism and Pluralism:
i. Relations between different legal orders (e.g. domestic and international), or regimes within a single legal order (e.g. trade and environment); coherence/conflict with values or ideals such as legitimacy, rule of law, stability.

III. Methodology:
a. Ideal vs. non-ideal theory; Rational reconstruction vs. practice-independent theory.
b. Models of the international legal order: community vs. contract
c. Meta-normative jurisprudence and philosophy of international law:
i. Excavate metaphysical and epistemological commitments of theories of (elements of) international law – e.g., representational vs. expressivist/inferentialist theories of meaning and truth/warrant.
d. Challenges to analytical legal philosophy of international law:
i. Critical approaches such as Marxist, Critical Race Theory, Feminist Theory, TWAIL.
ii. Genealogical approaches – “turn to history” in international legal theory.

Trends in Contemporary International Law and Politics
❖ Political trends:
➢ Resurgence of nationalism and/or populist politics.
➢ Ascendant authoritarianism, and concomitant rise of authoritarian international law.
➢ Shift toward a more multi-polar geopolitical world.
❖ Population trends:
➢ Demographic trends in countries and regions around the world.
➢ Migration, legal and illegal, temporary and permanent, voluntary and forced.
❖ Technological trends:
➢ Impacts of AI on paths to development, on empowering state and non-state actors, on war (e.g. autonomous weapons systems, nuclear weapons).
➢ Impacts of biotechnology, such as genetically modified foods and feeding nine billion people, or development of and access to pharmaceuticals.
❖ Environmental trends:
➢ Impact of climate change on geography (e.g., expanded desertification, rising seas, changes to seasonal cycles) and on geopolitics (e.g., political consequences of reduced reliance on fossil fuels).