International law is everywhere today. Wars are fought in his name, but also in his name the citizens oppose them. It is invoked to claim rights, to prosecute genocide, to better distribute wealth or to fight against the climate emergency. But, at the same time, international law is also an instrument used by the powerful to impose their interests in an increasingly unequal world.
This uncertain nature of international law - sometimes political, sometimes legal - is the common thread that serves Martti Koskenniemi to analyze the most classic questions related to international order and examine current conflicts. The Finnish jurist, in his capacity not only as a legal theorist but as an internationalist lawyer, proposes to abandon the hypocrisy of presenting international law as an objective, neutral and impartial reality. And he highlights the figure of the internationalist as one who dominates the language or grammar of international law.
As the essays collected in this book show —the last and most complete elaboration of the thought of its author—, making explicit the political conditions of each situation is a necessary task that does not deprive international law of its reforming character. On the contrary, it is the condition of its survival in the face of the rise of deregulation sponsored by the economy and international relations.