ABSTRACT
The distinctive conception of deformalised law in Roberto Esposito's theory of life is revealed in relation to the contemporary debate regarding the definition and status of international law, as soft law, between theorists of international law. An affirmative biopolitics assumes and maintains this tension against the thanatopolitical temptation to dissolve it into an exclusive process of naturalisation or historicisation: the absolutisation of life as either nature or history. International law becomes a particular immunitary instrument, and deformalisation of law is, in contrast, a specific instance of the construction of a reciprocal relation between community and immunity. The presence of this internal distinction - the historicisation of the non-historical - within an affirmative biopolitics situates the notions of the political and community as integral aspects of the notion of life. This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on the concepts covered in the preceding chapter of this book.
