ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the sociology of international law and particularly the sociology of the institutions increasingly put in place to interpret and realize international law: international courts (ICs). Max Weber's analysis of the evolution of law in terms of a set of different ideal-typical forms of rationality is probably the most immediately relevant among the classics. According to Weber, at the end of the day certain practice of power legitimate is the process through which authority justifies its exercise of power and gains social acceptance. The emergence of what now is undoubtedly a growing sociological scholarship on international law and ICs was in part inspired by studies of the globalization and transnationalization of law and legal professionals. Finally, the often debated question of the legitimacy of ICs is revealed through a very different and ultimately more complex lens than the dominant idea of legitimacy as a legalistic or political philosophical problem.
