DOI

10.1163/9789004700178_005

Abstract

Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. famously maintained that ‘the life of the law has not been logic: it has been experience.’ Holmes’ statement suggests an antecedent question: what is the life of the law? This article construes this question ontologically. What gives law life? What animates it, and in so doing warrants the claim that law contributes to the production of social order in a particular community? The answer, I contend, is that law lives, or exists, only in those societies where law rules, and law rules only when the exercise of political power is conducted under the supervision of lawyers, agents for whom realizing the rule of law is a calling or vocation. Perhaps surprisingly, I contend that the most prominent proponent of this account of law in the field of international law and legal theory is Martti Koskenniemi. While he generally eschews talk of government in accordance with the rule of law in favor of ‘a culture of formalism’ and ‘constitutionalism as a mindset,’ I demonstrate that Koskenniemi defends the same conception of law that Lon Fuller and Ronald Dworkin do. This conception identifies law not with rules or institutions but with a particular approach to the exercise of political power, one premised on actors reciprocal regard for one another as autonomous and responsible agents.

Document Type

Book Chapter

ISBN

978-90-04-70017-8

Publication Date

2024

Comments

The aim of the Hague Yearbook of International Law is to offer a platform for review of new developments in the field of international law. In addition, it devotes attention to developments in the international law institutions based in the international City of Peace and Justice, The Hague. This volume features a special issue on The Logic(s) of International Law.

Publisher Statement

Copyright © Brill, 2016-2026

This publication may be purchased here: https://brill.com/edcollbook/title/70411

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