Lesaffer: The End of the Cold War as an Epochal Event in the History of International Law

Randall C.H. Lesaffer (Tilburg Univ. - History) has posted The End of the Cold War as an Epochal Event in the History of International Law. Here's the abstract:

The purpose of this paper is to assess whether the end of the Cold war constitutes an epochal event in the history of international and whether it heralded a new epoch in that history. For this, we look at the period through the perspective of three grand narratives in the historiography of international law: the hegemonic, the Eurocentric and the state-centric. The latter appears to be the most relevant for our purposes. The post-Cold War years constitute another gradual step away from a system premised on the sovereign state. The balance between state sovereignty and international community is slowly shifting further. The post-Cold War Age – if one wants to consider an ‘age’ that has not ended yet just that – can best be called a third sub-period in the ‘Age of Mankind,’ the ‘Age of Universal International Law’ or the ‘Age of the International Community’ after the Interbellum and the Cold War Age.