Complexity Rules (or: Ruling Complexity), a Response to Jutta Brunnée
Heike Krieger/Georg Nolte/Andreas Zimmermann (eds), The International Rule of Law: Rise or Decline?
Hebrew University of Jerusalem International Law Forum Working Series 08-17
10 Pages Posted: 28 Nov 2017 Last revised: 29 Nov 2017
Date Written: November 22, 2017
Abstract
This paper is a comment on the capacity of international law to address complex problems such as climate change, as a complement and response to a paper written on the topic by Prof. Jutta Brunnée, as part of the Berlin/Potsdam research group, "International rule of law - Rise or Decline?". The comment first questions whether complexity is in fact a special case or rather an all-pervading characteristic of international relations, and by extension, of international law. Second, the comment questions - notwithstanding the current angst that internationalist lawyers feel and express due to what seems like a tidal-scale assault on international law - whether the international rule-of-law management of complexity is a particularly contemporary issue, or just another iteration of recurrent, resurgent, occasionally even refreshing, frictions that characterize international law. Third, the comment asks whether the challenges of complexity maintain a special relationship with international law, or whether these are substantially the same as the interactions of these issues with domestic legal systems.
Keywords: International law, climate change, complexity theory
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