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Hoffmann, Florian --- "Discourse" [2019] ELECD 200; in d’Aspremont, Jean; Singh, Sahib (eds), "Concepts for International Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2019) 201

Book Title: Concepts for International Law

Editor(s): d’Aspremont, Jean; Singh, Sahib

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN: 9781783474677

Section: Chapter 14

Section Title: Discourse

Author(s): Hoffmann, Florian

Number of pages: 21

Abstract/Description:

Discourse has been a key and increasingly pervasive concept in international law, even if it has retained a somewhat abstract and multifaceted connotation. First used in the (European) Renaissance to denote reflections on matters of state(hood), the concept went on – not least through the work of Michel Foucault – to refer to the particular form of governmentality represented by modern international law. Hence, discourse and/in international law concerns both the cognitive landscape of the world and its peoples which this modern international law constructs and which it (thereby) governs, as well as the ways in which international law has reflected upon itself, notably by theorizing its epistemic horizon and the practices attached to it. This chapter therefore seeks first to briefly explore in which ways the discourse of international law has shaped ‘the modern world’, and second to sketch in broad strokes the various theoretical discourses – and counterdiscourses – through which international law thematises itself.