The Rise or the Fall of International Law?

This Article argues that traditional international law is healthy in the sense that there are more international agreements than ever, and States continue to serve important roles in the international system. It is falling, however, as the sole focus of international legal efforts. It is necessary to redefine international law to include actors other than States among those who make international norms and who implement and comply with them, and to include legal instruments that may not be formally binding. These developments raise three important issues: the need for the new actors to be accountable and for the new norms to be legitimate; the need for consensus about the level or location of authority, be it international, national, subnational, or non-State, at which norms should be negotiated; and the rising need for international law to reflect commonly held values to keep the increasingly fragmented international community together