ABSTRACT
A few translation issues reappear throughout both essays, so it is worth explaining here how they have been handled. First, Politik is translated generally as ‘politics’ although there are one or two passages in which ‘policy’ is more appropriate. This general preference is in line with Schmitt’s overarching focus on ‘politics’ and his insistence on recognizing ‘the political’ as excessive with respect to any of the more technical and limited terms used to describe political institutions and processes (Schmitt, 1996 [1932]). Völkerrecht is trans - lated as the ‘law of nations’ where Schmitt is taking a longer historical view, and as ‘international law’ when his subject is the period from the nineteenth century to the present, the period in which something like a modern academic corpus of legal writings acquires clearer contours. The adjective völkerrechtlich is rendered as ‘international legal’ throughout.
