ABSTRACT
It is now possible to turn more directly to the part played by the state in the discipline of international law. In many ways the state as now understood – as often loosely referred to by the term ‘the nation state’ – plays quite straightforwardly the role of sovereign monarch in the law of nations of earlier times. This is the case at least to the extent that sovereign monarchs may be seen as the source as well as the embodiment of international legal regulation. This smooth conceptual transition from King to Country is highly compatible with the account of international law’s history encapsulated in the word ‘Westphalia’ as discussed in a previous chapter. A modern state system, as exemplified in the General Assembly membership, is very easily seen as the progressive political development of a pluralized monarchical scheme supposedly established in that Westphalian era. Although the grammar is inconsistent, ‘the state’ is, in many ways, in the discourse of international law, the successor to ‘will’ as examined in the previous chapter.
