Introduction (Chapter one from the book)

International law is an industry. It is driven not by a demand for justice, but by the pursuit of its own self-propagation. The determinants of its growth are not principally exogenous but endogenous. It achieves remarkably few of the goals it purports to advance. It is not a legal system at all in the conventional sense. At best it is a bogus and impotent bureaucracy; at worst a rhetorical cloud that obscures naked exercise of political power. Yet it is here to stay, it is liable to grow and prospects for its reform are bleak. Those are the themes of this book. In arguing for my ...