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The language of law and the laws of language

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Author

Summary, in English

The Status of Law in World Society by Friedrich Kratochwil is a sophisticated attempt to reassert the importance of international law in a globalised world by grounding it in the actual practices of legal reasoning. Yet this attempt to ground normativity in practice strikes me as problematic. As I shall argue, what law is cannot be determined with reference to legal practices only, but will depend on the fulfillment of certain background requirements which themselves stand in need of further justification. Thus the recourse to linguistic practice is beset by an ambivalence that stems from the fact that language and law always already are intertwined, an ambivalence that cannot therefore be overcome with recourse to either. If it is the case that law has a language of its own, we must also be prepared to admit that language has its own laws. What then is gained by the recourse to linguistic practice is not so much a resolution but rather a temporary displacement of indeterminacy from the realm of law to that of language.

Publishing year

2016-01-01

Language

English

Pages

250-257

Publication/Series

Millennium

Volume

44

Issue

2

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Millennium Publishing Group

Topic

  • Law and Society

Keywords

  • Foundationalism
  • International law
  • Linguistic turn
  • Practice

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 0305-8298