International Law-Making.

AuthorEllis, Jaye
PositionInternational Law-Making: Essays in Honour of Jan Klabbers

Book Review: Rain Liivoja and Jarna Petman, eds, International Law-Making: Essays in Honour of Jan Klabbers (London; New York: Routledge, 2014)

This liber amicorum to Jan Klabbers may seem a little premature, but, as the editors explain, it is a Finnish tradition to prepare such collections while prominent authors are still very much in full flight in their careers. (1) This is an excellent tradition: the collection has greater potential to take on the tone of a dialogue among peers than an homage to a master. Moreover, it seems only fitting to allow the recipient of such an honour time to absorb and respond to the ideas and arguments presented in the collection.

As is typical of projects of this nature, the collection is eclectic; it presents a highly diverse sample of works that draw inspiration from, build upon, and react to Klabbers' large and varied body of work. The theme selected by the editors, international law-making, is wholly appropriate, given Klabbers' many contributions to scholarly debates on this theme, particularly his increasing alarm at the rise of soft law, and the increasing informality of international law in general. (2) The theme does not serve as much of a red thread connecting the pieces in this collection; it operates, rather, to trace multiple vectors along which Klabbers' scholarship has moved, both in his own work and in the work of others who have had the good fortune to work with him. The contributions are grouped into four categories: legalisation and globalisation; domestic and international law; institutions and participants; and uncertainties and gaps. The collection's editors note a series of transversal issues addressed in the book, namely: a theoretical analysis of law-making; competing global normative orders; interactions and distinctions between law and non-law; sources of law; and actors.

For my part, I discern two axes along which the works in the collection could be plotted. First, we have authors' reactions to the increasingly material (managerial, technocratic) nature of law. Second, authors' reactions to law's increasingly informal nature are included, raising questions about the distinction between legitimacy and validity, and for many authors, democracy. Each of the authors represented in this collection has something to say about these two issues, though the positions that they adopt and the conclusions at which they arrive vary widely. What does come through clearly, however, is an...

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