Conveying Complexity: an Interview with Martti Koskenniemi
What gap does this book fill in international legal literature – why was this book necessary?
There are two elements that this book seeks to address. On the one hand, there is an increasing general interest in international law and James and I wanted to speak to the general reader. Yet that general interest is often fed with rather uncomplicated understandings of international law. Typically, people think that brining law to bear on international events is good in itself. We wanted to show that international law comes with its own contexts and consequences; we sought to expose the bright as well as the dark sides of international law and to convey its complexity. At the same time, we did not want to scare the general reader away with technicalities. In my opinion, the unique aspect of this book is that it offers sophistication, complexity and reflexivity while speaking to the general reader.
Given these high ambitions, how did you go about compiling the book?
One of the most interesting aspects of the editorial process was to choose people that we thought would be able to square the circle: to be both easily understandable and to convey complexity. We started by matching contributors with the four windows or themes of the Companion. Within that broad framework, the contributors were free to choose their own line of attack. We were confident that they would understand what we were after, and the first drafts were pretty far in the direction we wanted. Two years ago we convened in Cambridge and “disciplined” the authors by giving specific comments on each draft. So if there is uniformity to the essays, it is not by accident; we sought that.
You mentioned the four themes of the Companion – what is their significance?
I regard the thematic organisation as part of the special nature of the Companion. It tries to address the four different angles from which people come to international law. First, we wanted to explore international law in its different contexts. One might think that this context is self-evident: diplomacy. But we can also talk about international law as a special kind of law, on a par with contracts, property etc. But that is not all. International law is also a set of ideas with their own intellectual history, going back to Aristotle and Aquinas, and reaching into present-day international relations and politics. So we wished to convey the sense that there is not one single context for international law. It exists within a web of criss-crossing contexts.
Second, James and I agree that one cannot understand international law without understanding the central role of the State. The existence of the State is not simply “good” or “bad”, as many people seem to think. Statehood has a very complex nature and affects international law in various ways. It raises territorial issues, matters of jurisdiction and questions of sovereign power – war and peace. We could not leave the notion of Statehood unaddressed.
After examining the contexts and the State, how does international law operate in practice? Both James and I have used international law as a professional technique – at foreign ministries, at the UN, at courts and tribunals – and we wanted to give the book a phenomenological feeling: where and how does one operate the instruments of international law? What is it to “do” international law in practice? The third part of the book examines the techniques and arenas of international law.
Finally, people want to achieve things through international law. The “fight against impunity”, clean environment, free trade, protection of human rights – these are some of the “projects” that people want to advance through international law. We invited international lawyers who are either involved in such projects, or who might be skilful in analysing them, to take a look at those projects, their relationship to international legal rules and principles. How does international law produce “order”, or “rule of law”, for example, and what do such notions mean for different human groups?
How does this book fit with your personal project in international law?
I am well known as a crit, a left-leaning person who always looks at the dark side of everything, including international law. I am interested in examining how international law becomes an “ideology” that, alongside its undoubted benefits, also achieves bad things or participates in upholding an unjust society. I am against the all-too-simple view that international law simply brings justice to the world – international law can bring justice to the world, but it is also responsible for many of the world’s injustices. I would never say: ‘let’s have more international law.’ I would ask: ‘what might international law do here?’ Maybe there already is international law, but it produces negative effects. Take Guantanamo, for example. People often consider Guantanamo a legal vacuum, and thus a bad thing. That is just so wrong: there is no more regulated an area in the world than Guantanamo. It is just that these are the wrong rules. So, it is nonsense to say that we need more law. We have to ask ourselves: what kind of law do we want? How do we transform our political ideas into legal technicalities? I hope this book raises some of these questions and makes people think about what they wish to achieve through international law, and how the existing law has filled its promise.
How was it then to collaborate with James Crawford, who takes a rather different approach?
Wonderful, just wonderful. James is probably the world’s most sought-after legal counsel and his knowledge of the operation of law, of its technique, is incredibly wide and detailed. Nowhere else in the world will you find such a constellation of experience and expertise as in him. He understands that international law can do many things: tyrants use international law and angels use international law. He uses his awareness of this by participating intensively in the various technical procedures the law has to offer, with great force. I nowadays tend to focus more on principles, histories and ideologies of international law. I am predominantly an academic person while James is predominantly a practitioner – but both of us have that other ambition, even if in a secondary role. This is why, I think, our outlook on much of the material is very similar. In this sense we complement, rather than contradict, each other.
Finally, what impact do you hope this book will have, particularly on young lawyers?
There has never been a book like this. Its message is aimed at two audiences. On the one hand, this book is for the general academic reader, who we want to think of international law in a more complex fashion. But I also hope that it shows young law students that there is a huge variety of ways in which they can participate and carry out their professional lives in international law. When they look at the various contexts, the different techniques and arenas and the many projects, they will see that there is not a single way to be a lawyer, or not one single project to carry out. Just committing oneself to being an international lawyer is meaningless. You always commit to some kind of professional practice that takes place in some arena and that drives some project. To put this in a nutshell, I hope that the lawyers who read our book, in particular law students, will be more conscious of the choices they will face and of their future roles in the professional and political arenas of international law.
*The CJICL blog team would like to thank Surabhi Ranganathan, assistant editor of the Companion, for her help with the preparation of this post*