ABSTRACT

This chapter discusses suggests a typology for understanding the various theoretical accounts of the nature of international law. It shows how alternative theories of international law might have prompted or motivated the attempt to reshape liberalism through democracy. The chapter considers two versions of the democratic liberal approach: Kantian liberalism represented here by Ferdinand Teson, and democratic governance represented by Thomas Franck and reflect, fairly broadly, on some difficulties with these schools. It explores the familiar classical liberal approach to international law and some of its principal failings. The chapter describes that neither enterprise is capable of sustaining a universal or coherent vision of normative renewal. Kantian liberalism fails to convince that its elevation of the individual as the primary normative actor in international law is any more than a romanticised preference for the current, flawed constitutional forms of liberal government.