The View from the New Haven School of International Law

Abstract

Selecting the right jurisprudence for a task is critical. The New Haven School of jurisprudence is an entirely secular theory of law but it takes the perspective long associated with natural law, that of the decision maker. For New Haven, the notion of decision extends across the range of social organization and throughout the hierarchy of power; it includes the making of law or legislation as well as its application through courts or other institutions, and it conceives of both these activities as operating at the constitutive or structural level and in all of the various value processes of a community, including the production of wealth, of enlightenment, of skill, of health and well-being, of affection, of respect and rectitude.