The Law of International Organizations and the Art of Reconciliation

Abstract

After submitting that most scholarly and practical debates about the law of international organizations can be construed as a battle between arguments based on the idea of a contract and those based on the idea of a constitution, this article discusses international legal scholars’ ability to turn the foundational dichotomies between contractualism and constitutionalism into a dynamic and dialectic framework. It makes the argument that international legal scholars, and especially legal academics, while unanimously acknowledging the existence of such paradigmatic tensions, are regularly tempted to iron them out through the promotion of a series of dialectical concepts or moves.