Abstract
This chapter illuminates the role that sources doctrine plays in construing international law as a system. It frames international law’s systemic qualities within the recursive relationship between sources doctrine and debates over international law’s systematicity. Sources doctrine reinforces and buttresses international law’s claim to constitute a legal system; and the legal system demands and requires that legal sources exist within it. International law’s systematicity and the doctrine of international legal sources exist in a mutually constitutive relationship, and cannot exist without one another. This recursive relationship privileges unity, coherence, and the existence of a unifying inner logic which transcends mere interstate relations and constitutes a legal structure. In this respect, the social practices of those officials who are part of the institutional workings of the system, and especially those with a law--applying function, are of heightened relevance in conceiving of international law as a system.
Original language | English |
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Title of host publication | The Oxford Handbook on the Sources of International Law. |
Editors | Samantha Besson, Jean d’Aspremont |
Place of Publication | Oxford |
Publisher | Oxford University Press |
Pages | 604-624 |
Number of pages | 21 |
ISBN (Print) | 9780198745365 |
Publication status | Published - 2018 |