7 - Of Gardeners and Bees

Summary

This chapter offers a new framework for theorizing about the roles of different types of actors who participate in processes of cross-fertilization. All of these actors have complex or mixed motives: while actors may place some value on the coherence of the international legal system, they weigh such systemic concerns against other, more immediate concerns. International judges, for example, may place value on the coherence of the international legal system, but they may place greater emphasis on the autonomy of their own specialized or regional legal order, on the normative values of that order and on their own authority within that order. Other actors, by contrast, may place little or no value on international legal coherence, but favor or oppose cross-fertilization as a function of its effect on the their likelihood of prevailing in a dispute. In a world of complex actor preferences, the process of cross-fertilization is likely to resemble, not a consensual process of management, but a constant struggle among a wide variety of actors, some of whom will champion cross-fertilization while others seek to prevent or limit it.