ABSTRACT
In the introduction to this book, we asked whether current global events indicate the breakdown of the international legal order. Such questions are no longer hyperbolical in the light of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Israel's brutal war on Gaza after Hamas's attack in October 2022, and the United States's defiance of WTO trade rules and violation of the non-aggression clause of the UN Charter with its threats to annex Greenland and other territories. The rule of law and constitutional values are also under threat in domestic legal orders. Respect for constitutions and courts is waning in the so-called free world. Globally, democracy is in decline, and some even speak of the end of the rule of law. 1 The political conflicts of our time clearly show that the question of the end of law is not merely an academic preoccupation but an immediate political problem which ought to be addressed concretely and explicitly.
