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Brölmann, Catherine; Radi, Yannick --- "Introduction: International lawmaking in a global world" [2016] ELECD 577; in Brölmann, Catherine; Radi, Yannick (eds), "Research Handbook on the Theory and Practice of International Lawmaking" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2016) 1

Book Title: Research Handbook on the Theory and Practice of International Lawmaking

Editor(s): Brölmann, Catherine; Radi, Yannick

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781781953211

Section Title: Introduction: International lawmaking in a global world

Author(s): Brölmann, Catherine; Radi, Yannick

Number of pages: 10

Extract:

Introduction: International lawmaking in a global
world
Catherine Brölmann and Yannick Radi



1. TAKING STOCK
International lawmaking in the past 70 years has become increasingly varied and has
come to involve different loci of authority, levels of governance and shades of
normativity. The perception that our time is very different from the early days of the
United Nations era has inspired for example the well-known psychedelic image of

[a] brave new world of international law where transactional actors, sources of law, allocation
of decision function and modes of regulation have all mutated into fascinating hybrid forms.
International Law now comprises a complex blend of customary, positive, declarative and soft
law.1

That picture is quite unlike the doctrinal framework usually found in textbooks.
Scholars and practitioners have sought new ways to explain and understand the
continuities and dynamics in the creation of normativity in international affairs,2 and
that process is ongoing. `Linguistic instability is one sign of a changing world',3 and
the word `lawmaking' is indeed used with various and divergent meanings ­ depending
on one's premises, as set out below. This makes the term limited in theoretical vigor but
flexible enough to describe the multifaceted normative practice that is observed by
policy-makers and lawyers today.
Against this background we have considered there is room for a project aimed at
taking stock at the conceptual and the empirical level of the various instances of
`international lawmaking'. This comprehensive objective brings with it an inductive
approach, ...