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A Hard Look at Soft Law
Reisman, W. Michael
Reisman, W. Michael
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Abstract
The commonplace conception of lawmaking in domestic political systems, the enactment of legislation by highly specialized and routinized political institutions, is utterly inappropriate for an inquiry about lawmaking in a much more complex and varied intemational political system. A substantial body of intemationallaw, as we know, has not derived from formal institutions. Specialized and routinized intemational political institutions that purport to engage in lawmaking are only one, often marginal, sometimes very questionable, setting for lawmaking. So any inquiry that we undertake, as Professor Handl has just observed, must go back to some functional components.