With
more than 158,000 treaties and some 125 judicial organisations,
international law has become an inescapable factor in world politics
since the Second World War. In recent years, however, international law
has also been increasingly challenged as states are voicing concerns
that it is producing unintended effects and accuse international courts
of judicial activism. This book provides an important corrective to
existing theories of international law by focusing on how states respond
to increased legalisation and rely on legal expertise to manoeuvre
within and against international law. Through a number of case studies,
covering a wide range of topical issues such as surveillance,
environmental regulation, migration and foreign investments, the book
argues that the expansion and increased institutionalisation of
international law itself have created the structural premise for this
type of politics of international law. More international law
paradoxically increases states' political room of manoeuvre in world
society.
