Messenger: The Development of International Law and the Role of Causal Language

Gregory Messenger (Univ. of Oxford) has published The Development of International Law and the Role of Causal Language (Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, Vol. 36, no. 1, pp. 110-134, Spring 2016). Here's the abstract:

The international legal system accommodates a range of legal regimes that regulate a number of substantive areas of human behaviour, often accompanied by increasingly detailed institutional and normative frameworks. Within these regimes, international law develops under a range of influences, frequently interacting not only with other areas of international law but also regional or domestic law. This article questions the way in which we examine this process, seeking to clarify the morass of influences that affect it. In rejecting implicitly empirical methods, it stresses the use of causal language as a powerful analytical tool to clarify, in legal terms, what is otherwise a confusing array of competing and interlocking influences. In particular, using the WTO as an example, it posits the development of international law through three interrelated causes: instrumental, systemic and constitutive, that together furnish a holistic explanation of how the law develops in a specific area.