The Figure of the Lawyer in Orford's International Law and the Politics of History
Temple International & Comparative Law Journal, Vol. 36, No. 2, 2022
Faculty of Laws University College London Law Research Paper No. 17/2022
18 Pages Posted: 19 Oct 2022
Date Written: September 10, 2022
Abstract
This response to Orford's International Law and the Politics of History takes seriously the book's premise of a binary encounter between 'lawyer' and 'historian', and probes how the book makes sense of the interaction between the two: the objects of their inquiry and the terms on which they encounter each other. Working from this encounter throws up questions about the work being done by and within the figure of the lawyer. I focus on the rearticulation of what it is to work and write as a lawyer, which, to me, lies at the heart of the book. I argue that this rearticulation has far-reaching and generative potential as demand for lawyers to reflect on their practice. However, it cannot stabilize a scholarly identity in any interdisciplinary encounter—or in the politics of, in, and beyond law.
Keywords: history of international law, sociology of international law, diplomacy, method, contextualism
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