Chapter Eight - Interactional Law and the Rule of Law

Summary

Over the last twenty years, Jutta Brunnée and I have developed what we call an “interactional” understanding of international law, connecting insights from IR constructivism and practice theory to the legal theory of Lon Fuller.⁶²⁸ I will shortly lay out the basic approach, but want now to make a strong claim that “interactional law” is an expression of the intellectual traditions I canvassed inof this book. As such, it is not limited to the context of international law, but can inform our understanding of all law. And it helps to point the way to a more hopeful future because it posits an understanding of the rule of law that is appropriately modest but, in part for that reason, fruitful in addressing the anxieties of our era.