International Legal Theory

Now retired, Nicholas Onuf taught at Georgetown, American and Florida International Universities and has been a visiting professor in Brazil, Japan, Sri Lanka and the US. He wrote World of Our Making and The Republican Legacy in International Thought and has co-authored or edited four other books.

"Covering four decades of international affairs, Nicholas Onuf, one of the fathers of constructivist international relations theory and in depth connoisseur of international law, bears witness to the whole range of international legal theorising during the second half of the twentieth century – a ‘must read’ for all those interested in the way theoretical thinking developed in this discipline." Professor Florian Hoffman, Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro

• 1. Introduction. Theory as Autobiography Part One: Legal Theory and Its Limits, 1966-1980 2. Changing International Law (1966) 3. Professor Falk on the Quasi-Legislative Competence of the General Assembly (1969) 4. The Principle of Nonintervention, the United Nations and the International System (1970) 5. Further Thoughts on a New Source of International Law: Professor D’Amato’s “Manifest Intent” (1971) 6. Peremptory Norms of International Law: Their Source, Function and Future (1973, with Richard K. Birney) 7. Law-Making in the Global Community (1974) 8. Reprisals: Rituals, Rules, Rationales (1974) 9. Law and Lawyers in International Crises (1975) 10. International Legal Order as an Idea (1978) 11. International Codification: Interpreting the Last Half-Century (1980) Part Two: Social Theory and the Linguistic Turn, 1980-1993 12. Review, Negara, The Theatre State in Nineteenth-Century Bali, by Clifford Geertz (1982) 13. Review, Law, Morality, and the Relations of States, by Terry Nardin (1984, with Professor Nardin’s Reply) 14. Custom and Discourse (1985, with V. Spike Peterson) 15. Do Rules Say What They Do? From Ordinary Language to International Law (1984) 16. Review, Jurisprudence: A Descriptive and Normative Analysis of Law, by Anthony D’Amato (1986) 17. Review, International Legal Structure, by David Kennedy (1988) 18. Review, From Apology to Utopia: The Structure of International Legal Argument, by Martti Koskenniemi (1989) 19. Review, International Law: Politics, Values and Functions, by Louis Henkin (General Course on Public International Law) (Receuil des cours de l’Academie de droit international de la Haye, 1989 I (Vol. 213) (1991) 20. The Constitution of International Society (1993) Process Versus Rules Society and its Constitution International Society Part Three: Theory, History and Modernity, 1993-2006 21. Civitas Maxima: Wolff, Vattel and the Fate of Republicanism (1993) 22. Review, A Normative Approach to War: Peace, War, and Justice in Hugo Grotius, ed. by Onuma Yasuaki (1994) 23. Review, International Law and Political Reality: Collected Papers, Volume One, by Anthony D’Amato (1995) 24. “Tainted by Contingency”: Retelling the Story of International Law (1995) 25. How to Think about “The Golden Age of International Law” (1999) 26. A Virtual Interview Conducted by Professor Onuma’s Students in Tokyo (2002) 27. Normative Frameworks for Humanitarian Intervention (2002) 28. Eurocentrism and Civilization (2003) 29. Practicing Theory (2006)