Realism and International Law: A Critique

Abstract

What is the place of international law in the realist school of thought in IR? Richard Steinberg proposes one account, focused on the central place of state power and state interests. I suggest that an interests on states and state power is so widely shared among different intellectual approaches in IR that this does not define a distinctively realist approach. Instead, I propose three possible models that might underlie realism and IL and give an analysis of their relative merits.

Keywords: international law, realism, IR theory, constructivism