d'Aspremont: Cognitive Conflicts and the Making of International Law: From Empirical Concord to Conceptual Discord in Legal Scholarship

Jean d'Aspremont (Univ. of Manchester - Law) has posted Cognitive Conflicts and the Making of International Law: From Empirical Concord to Conceptual Discord in Legal Scholarship (Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

This Article seeks to shed some light on the reasons guiding scholars in their choices pertaining to the cognition of international lawmaking. After a brief outline of the mainstream empirical construction of current norm-generating processes in international law (1) and a further detailed description of the main cognitive choices (value-facts) found in international legal scholarship (2), this Article elaborates on the driving forces behind each of the main value-facts permeating contemporary literature on international lawmaking (3). Particular attention is paid to static and dynamic conceptions of lawmaking based on subjects, the pedigree of rules, participation, impact, or a mix of them. This Article draws attention to the politics of empiricism and cognition with the aim of engaging in critical self-reflection on how international legal scholars and practitioners have been making sense of international lawmaking.