Understanding How Law Functions

Abstract

International Relations Theory and International Law: A Critical Approach. By Adriana Sinclair. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. 201 pp., $90.00 hardcover (ISBN 978-0-521-11672-5), $29.99 paperback (ISBN 978-0-521-13346-3). Law is a socially constructed phenomenon subject to the interests and influences of those whose behavior it seeks to regulate. At the same time, law shapes that behavior both directly and indirectly by creating expectations, establishing relationships, and identifying consequences for failure to perform. This is true for all law—domestic and international—even though laws may function in different ways depending on their locations. One of the chief differences is in the level of institutionalization. Domestic law is usually the product of some legislative process that is implemented by an executive who may also be charged to impose sanctions for any violation. The means to settle disputes are usually provided through a judicial system or some other form of dispute resolution. International law may now have international institutions that carry out some of these functions, but they are not as widely recognized or used as such institutions are domestically. International law's normative objectives may not be as clearly discernible as those of domestic law since there can be a considerable time lag between the enactment of international law through treaties, customary law, and other efforts to regulate international behavior and its realization in practice. These two factors—the lack of institutionalization and the sometimes long incubation period to realize normative objectives—are at the heart of the failure of many lawyers to understand international law's purpose and functions and for many in international relations (IR) and political science to doubt its influence. Decades of collaboration between international relations and international law (IR-IL) scholars have …