Friedrich Kratochwil's book explores the
role of law in the international arena and the key discourses surrounding it. It
explains the increased importance of law for politics, from law-fare to the
judicialization of politics, to human rights, and why traditional expectations
of progress through law have led to disappointment. Providing an overview of the
debates in legal theory, philosophy, international law and international
organizations, Kratochwil reflects on the need to break down disciplinary
boundaries and address important issues in both international relations and
international law, including deformalization, fragmentation, the role of legal
pluralism, the emergence of autonomous autopoietic systems and the appearance of
non-territorial forms of empire. He argues that the pretensions of a positivist
theory in social science and of positivism in law are inappropriate for
understanding practical problems and formulates an approach for the analysis of
praxis based on constructivism and pragmatism
