Alvarez: International Organizations and the Rule of Law: Challenges Ahead

José E. Alvarez (New York Univ. - Law) has posted International Organizations and the Rule of Law: Challenges Ahead (in The International Legal Order: Essays Commemorating the 10th Anniversary of the Xiamen Academy of International Law, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

In this synthesis of some of the themes of a General Course on International Law given at the Xiamen Academy of International Law, Alvarez canvasses the diverse ways that inter-governmental organizations, particularly those of the UN system, have changed the traditional international sources of law contained in Article 38 of the Statute of the International Court of Justice. It argues that the resulting challenge posed to legal positivism underlies the daunting difficulties faced by those seeking to make international organizations “accountable.” It also argues that, paradoxically, the ways that international organizations have sought to make or influence law may make it more difficult for those organizations to subject themselves to the rule of law. If today we question, with good reason, whether the "international rule of law" exists, one reason for doubts may be the ways that international organizations engage in "law-making."