What’s Going On? Reflections on Kratochwil’s Concept of Law
| Date | 01 January 2016 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0305829815620297 |
| Author | Wouter Werner |
| Published date | 01 January 2016 |
| Subject Matter | Forum: The Status of Law in World Society |
Millennium: Journal of
International Studies
2016, Vol. 44(2) 258 –268
© The Author(s) 2016
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DOI: 10.1177/0305829815620297
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1. Friedrich Kratochwil, The Status of Law in World Society: Meditations on the Role and Rule
of Law (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 223.
What’s Going On? Reflections
on Kratochwil’s Concept
of Law
Wouter Werner
Centre for the Politics of Transnational Law, Vrije Universiteit, The Netherlands
Abstract
This article focuses on two conceptual puzzles that arise out of Kratochwil’s concept of law. The
first is the dual meaning of the questions ‘what is the law’ and ‘what is society’? I will argue that a
sociological approach to these questions is unable to do justice to the specific position of the legal
practitioner, for whom then these questions are first and foremost normative ones with possible far-
reaching implications. The second is the relation between the validity and the binding force of law. In
line with institutional approaches to law, I argue that legal language cannot be reduced to one form of
linguistic practice, the production of binding decisions and norms of conduct. I will show how a broader
conception of law as a form of linguistic activity opens up new research agendas in (international) law.
Keywords
concept of law, speech act theory, legal reasoning
Introduction
How should one go on after reading Kratochwil’s The Status of Law in World Society?
One possible answer would be: go around and tell the world about the graphic depictions
of theories under critique in the book. What about Kratochwil’s debunking of the idea
that individuals possess natural, a-historical rights, ‘as if the natural rights we ascribe to
a person as a moral agent have to be brought along like suitcases when s/he leaves the
state of nature and arrives at the big city of Cosmopolis’?1 Sometimes imageries tell
more than a thousand arguments.
Corresponding author:
Wouter Werner, Centre for the Politics of Transnational Law, Vrije Universiteit, De Boelelaan 1105,
Amsterdam, 1081 HV, The Netherlands.
Email: w.g.werner@vu.nl
620297MIL0010.1177/0305829815620297MillenniumWerner
research-article2015
Forum: The Status of Law in World Society
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