Ulf Linderfalk – författare

Over the last thirty or so years, international law and legal practice have become increasingly more specialized and diversified. These developments come with an increasingly divergent legal practice, in what has been coined as 'special regimes'. This book proposes a new understanding of the concept of a special regime to explain why specialists in different fields of international law do similar things differently. It argues that special regimes are best conceived as communities of practice, in the sense of Etienne Wenger's theory of communities of practice. It explores how the theory of communities of practice translates to the context of international law and the concept of a special regime. The authors draw up an innovative methodology to investigate their theory, focused on the conduct of community members, and apply this method to selected case studies, offering an original approach to the understanding of the special regimes in international law.

1 PURPOSE AND TOPIC We live in the age of treaties. Increasingly, bilateral and multilateral written agreements are used for the creation of new international legal standards. For political reasons, states are decreasingly less willing to rely upon customary international law for the regulation of legal matters. New technology and growing international exchange have established the need for an ever more precise and flexible international law – a need not satisfactorily met by customary law. In many fields of activity, we can seriously question whether the creation of a rule of custom is at all possible. Considering also that the number of states capable of drafting and concluding treaties seems to be growing, it is not surprising that treaties are concluded far more frequently than ever before. In several ways this is a development that should be met with approval. By entering into written agreements, states avoid the difficulties inherent in customary international law. At the same time, the increasing number of treaties should also be causing concern. The more treaties that are concluded, the more treaties that will have to be applied; and the more treaties that are applied, the more often the question will arise: To what extent, and under what specific conditions, should such an application occur? Naturally, this includes the question of how treaties should be interpreted.

Whilst the concept of jus cogens has grown increasingly more important in public international law, lawyers remain hugely divided both over what precisely confers a jus cogens status on a norm, and what this conferral implies in terms of legal consequences. In this ground-breaking book, Ulf Linderfalk clearly and succinctly explores the reasons for this divide in order to facilitate more rational and productive future discourse.Offering a new focus for jus cogens research, this insightful work moves beyond traditionally designed investigations of the application of jus cogens in international law and instead analyses the many implicit basic assumptions held by participants in international legal discourse, and the way in which these assumptions explain their various claims. Clarifying the precise relationship between submitted propositions and a legal positivist or legal idealist frame of mind, this captivating book will influence not only the future understanding and practice of international law, but also its codification and progressive development.Scholars and advanced students of public international law, and international legal theory especially, will find this book a stimulating and novel read. Practitioners and judicial bodies will also benefit from a deeper understanding of the many issues and influences surrounding the concept of jus cogens.

International law is an underdeveloped branch of legal research: researchers still disagree over the proper understanding of several of its most fundamental issues, and genuinely so. This book helps to explain why. It brings clarity that will no doubt make international legal research more rational, which in turn vouches for a more productive legal discourse.The author, together with invited contributors, builds an argument around theories of epistemological justification. As chapters contend, in international legal discourse, the construction of knowledge about international law presupposes some notion of an international legal system. International legal discourse accommodates several such notions. Each notion derives from a different conception of law. Thus, depending on whether a researcher endorses a legal positivist’s, a legal idealist’s or a legal realist’s conception of law, he or she will be constructing knowledge of international law under different epistemic conditions. The book sheds considerable light on these different conditions, with several chapters exploring how the different notions of an international legal system play out in the context of a series of concrete themes of legal practice. In doing so, the book helps to build a bridge between the practical and more philosophical aspects of this topic.This book will be an ideal companion for scholars of international law. Lawyers and students interested in legal theory and philosophy will also benefit from this thought-provoking study.

1 PURPOSE AND TOPIC We live in the age of treaties. Increasingly, bilateral and multilateral written agreements are used for the creation of new international legal standards. For political reasons, states are decreasingly less willing to rely upon customary international law for the regulation of legal matters. New technology and growing international exchange have established the need for an ever more precise and flexible international law – a need not satisfactorily met by customary law. In many fields of activity, we can seriously question whether the creation of a rule of custom is at all possible. Considering also that the number of states capable of drafting and concluding treaties seems to be growing, it is not surprising that treaties are concluded far more frequently than ever before. In several ways this is a development that should be met with approval. By entering into written agreements, states avoid the difficulties inherent in customary international law. At the same time, the increasing number of treaties should also be causing concern. The more treaties that are concluded, the more treaties that will have to be applied; and the more treaties that are applied, the more often the question will arise: To what extent, and under what specific conditions, should such an application occur? Naturally, this includes the question of how treaties should be interpreted.

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