title: Is International Law International?
Creators: name: Roberts, Anthea Elizabeth
Publisher: name: Canberra, ACT : The Australian National University
Year: 2017
Subjects: subject: international law
subject: difference
subject: dominance
subject: disruption
subject: comparative
subject: comparative international law
subject: globalization
subject: globalisation
subject: elite
subject: core
subject: periphery
subject: core-periphery
subject: Security Council
subject: academics
subject: textbooks
subject: geopolitics
subject: geopolitical power
subject: economic power
subject: Western
subject: non-Western
subject: unipolar
subject: unipolarity
subject: multilpolar
subject: multipolarity
subject: Anglo-American
subject: language
subject: French
subject: Russian
subject: Chinese
subject: lingua franca
subject: United Kingdom
subject: United States
subject: UK
subject: US
subject: China
subject: Crimea
subject: Ukraine
subject: South China Sea
subject: humanitarian intervention
subject: R2P
subject: responsibility to protect
subject: state sovereignty
subject: cybersecurity
subject: cyber security
subject: information security
subject: liberal
subject: democratic
subject: silos
subject: foreign relations
subject: foreign relations law
subject: actors
subject: materials
subject: understandings
subject: approaches
subject: frames
subject: viewing the world through the eyes of others
subject: communities
subject: sociology
subject: transnational
subject: transnational legal field
subject: nationalising
subject: nationalizing
subject: denationalising
subject: denationalizing
subject: westernising
subject: westernizing
subject: transnational flows
subject: student flows
subject: asymmetry
subject: asymmetrical
subject: education
subject: practice
subject: publication

description: International lawyers are familiar with the question: “Is international law law?” But this thesis instead asks the question: “Is international law international?” Using a variety of methods, this work sheds light on some of the ways in which international law as a transnational legal field is constructed by international law academics, and is conceptualized in international law textbooks, in the five permanent members of the Security Council: the People’s Republic of China, the French Republic, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and the United States of America. It explores how different national communities of international lawyers construct and pass on their understandings of “international law” in ways that belie the field’s claim to universality, perpetuating certain forms of difference and dominance. By adopting a comparative approach, it aims to make international lawyers more aware of the frames that shape their own understandings of and approaches to the field, as well as how these might be similar to or different from the frames adopted by those coming from other states, regions or geopolitical groupings. It also examines how some of these patterns might be disrupted as a result of shifts in geopolitical power, such as the movement from unipolar power toward greater multipolarity and the growing confrontations between Western liberal democratic states (like the United States, the United Kingdom, and France) and non-Western authoritarian states (like China and Russia).