Chance, order, change : : the course of international law : general course on public international law / / James Crawford.

• Superior document: Pocketbooks of the Hague Academy of International Law
• Author: Crawford, James, 1948-2021.
• Place / Publishing House: [The Hague] : : Hague Academy of International Law,, [2014]
• Year of Publication: 2014
• Language: English
• Series: The Pocket Books of The Hague Academy of International Law / Les livres de poche de l'Académie de droit international de La Haye 21.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (537 pages) :; illustrations
• Notes: Full text of the lecture published in December 2013 in the Recueil des cours, Vol. 365.

Chance, Order, Change: The Course of International Law, General Course on Public International Law by J. Crawford The course of international law over time needs to be understood if international law is to be understood. This work aims to provide such an understanding. It is directed not at topics or subject headings — sources, treaties, states, human rights and so on — but at some of the key unresolved problems of the discipline. Unresolved, they call into question its status as a discipline. Is international law “law” properly so-called? In what respects is it systematic? Does it — can it — respect the rule of law? These problems can be resolved, or at least reduced, by an imaginative reading of our shared practices and our increasingly shared history, with an emphasis on process. In this sense the practice of the institutions of international law is to be understood as the law itself. They are in a dialectical relationship with the law, shaping it and being shaped by it. This is explained by reference to actual cases and examples, providing a course of international law in some standard sense as well.