“International Law? Well, it isn’t really ‘Law’, is it?”
“No other area of law is compelled to justify its very ontology and existence, and yet international law seems condemned perpetually to do so.” (D.J. Bederman)
“A study group about International Law?”
“Yes, and apparently their meetings are held in English!”
I was a young student in my very early Law School time in Minas Gerais, Brazil. Public international law was part of the regular curriculum, I would face it one or two semesters ahead. But the news about a study group on International Law filled me with intense curiosity.
The older students were called “veterans” — as if it were an army of a sort. And we were the freshmen. I remember timidly opening the door, “Is… Huh… Is this the meeting of the study group on International Law?”, “Yes, welcome!”, and all of a sudden I was seated watching with awe as three brilliant veterans, Diego, Raquel and Lucas, vividly debated a case that had something to do with “vessels”, flags, a criminal trial and the year 1926.
The veterans had very thick photocopies bounded together by a spiral dark and strong plastic on their desks. It felt like they were wizards casting verbal spells from their ancient photocopied grimoires — especially because many words in English seemed Aramaic to me at the time, starting with the very word “vessel”. Understanding the Lotus Case without knowing what the English words “vessel” or “steamer” mean would be the first of many challenges. The grimoires, I later learned, were old photocopies of photocopies of the “Cases and Materials on International Law”, by D. J. Harris.
Years before that, the United States decided to invade Iraq — an act that was seem as a blatant breach of the United Nations Charter. I remember telling classmates about the study group and having many of them casually replying something along the lines of “But international law doesn’t exist”, or “Well, it isn’t ‘really’ Law, right?”. Later I would find out that these perceptions about the discipline were not confined to the rooms and halls of my Law School in Minas Gerais, Brazil. I would find that out in… Austin, Texas.
A couple of years later my curiosity about international law (and international human rights law) led me to join the University of Texas as a visiting researcher, despite being yet an undergraduate student — a special opportunity made possible by different supporters, including my Brazilian alma mater. UT libraries were so resourceful… The building that harboured the UT Law School Library seemed like made of dreams for my bibliophile eyes. A heavenly place (the Nobel-winning writer from Argentina J. L. Borges had famously said that he imagined paradise as a kind of a library…). I would spend most of my times scavenging the shelves for surprises.
This one time, while I was doing that among the many shelves dedicated to International Law, I came across a blue book called “The spirit of international law”, by D. J. Bederman (yes, another D. J.). At the very beginning of the book, after stressing the importance of international law as “the basis of international business and trade”, “the uses of international common resources”, “the management of common transnational problems”; as the body of rules governing the affairs of nations, individuals, enterprises and institutions “in relations, transactions, and problems that transcend national frontiers”; after highlighting all that, Bederman asks:
“Why, then — if international law is so historically legitimate and ethically relevant, so doctrinally robust and functionally necessary — do so many people (including lawyers, policy makers and scholars) believe it does not exist? Why does it seem to be the stepchild of legal studies, a discipline in search of its own reality? No other area of law is compelled to justify its very ontology and existence, and yet international law seems condemned perpetually to do so.”
Why, indeed.
