Narratives of the International Legal Order and Why They Matter: An Introduction

Abstract

Much article and web space has been recently invested in investigating the nature of the international legal order, or, rather, in promoting specific visions of the international legal order. This special issue of the Erasmus Law Review (ELR) is yet another contribution to this growing body of literature, but one that adds a twist which, we believe, may contribute positively to these debates. Before I get to that, though, let me just say that it has been a real intellectual treat and a challenge to be a guest editor to this issue of the ELR. I am deeply grateful to Prof. Dr. Ellen Hey for all of her support along the way, which makes her de facto the co-editor of this special issue. I have found our rapport most fruitful, and she has been essential to bringing the original idea for this issue to fruition. Now, this issue starts from the assumption that current debates in international law seem to be informed by different narratives about the international legal order. These narratives about ‘projects’ of the international legal order are ways of thinking that in one way or another attempt at explaining the convergences and divergences of international legal rules and institutions. More importantly, another assumption underlying the impetus for this issue is that scholars who engage with these debates about broader notions of the international legal order most often engage with the ideas on a conceptual level, or from the perspective of what is commonly referred to as ‘general’ international law, often neglecting the contribution of ‘specialised’ fields of international law to these narratives or projects. This issue attempts to remedy that, by having articles written by scholars who engage in specialised fields of international law think about their areas as contributors not only to the broader international legal project, but also to one of the narratives of the legal international. The main narratives referred to can be roughly labeled as ‘global administrative law’, ‘the constitutionalisation of international law’, ‘international legal pluralism’, and ‘the fragmentation of international law’. In broad terms, global administrative law (GAL) seeks to map out the competence creep of different interna-