The Nature of International Law

Miodrag A. Jovanović is a Full Professor in Jurisprudence in the Faculty of Law at the University of Belgrade. His areas of interest are jurisprudence, philosophy of international law, legal theory of collective rights, political theory of multiculturalism, federalism and legal and political nature of the EU. He is a fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and the 2016 Brandon Fellow of the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law, University of Cambridge. He has previously published Collective Rights: A Legal Theory (Cambridge, 2012).

• Acknowledgments; Introduction; Part I. International Law as a Subject Matter of Legal Philosophy – A Brief Historical Overview: 1. Early theorizing about law beyond the state – Ancient Greece and Rome; 2. Natural law theory and the birth of international legal scholarship – Grotius, Pufendorf and Hobbes; 3. The German public law turn; 4. Classical analytical jurisprudence: the rise of skepticism towards international law; 5. Twentieth century legal positivism on international law; 6. Revived jurisprudential interest in international law; Part II. In Search of the Nature of (International) Law – Methodological Postulates: 7. Grasping 'analytical' in the analytical approach; 8. Challenges to the conceptual analysis; 9. Beyond the conceptual analysis? The prototype theory of concepts and the nature of law; Part III. Typical Features of (International) Law: 10. The central case of law (as a genre); 11. Typical features of (international) law – preliminary finding; Part IV. International Law as a Normative Order: 12. Epistemological perspective – how are we to ascertain a norm; 13. Epistemological perspective at the international level – on formal sources of international law; 14. Perspective of practical rationality – how norms provide reasons for action; 15. Perspective of practical rationality at the international level; Part V. International Law as an Institutionalized and (Coercively) Guaranteed Order: 16. Institutionalization of the international order; 17. Institutions of international law; 18. (Coercive) guarantees in international law; Part VI. Justice-Aptness of International Law: 19. Allocative conflicts and international law-making; 20. Rectificatory justice and international law-application; Part VII. Fragmentation – A Special Feature of International Law?: 21. Hart's lens of 'systematicity'; 22. The ILC's lens of 'fragmentation'; 23. The 'as if' lens of international law's unity; In lieu of a conclusion – a note on (un)certainty.

'Legal philosophers have too often ignored international law as irrelevant, or because it is an embarrassment to their theories. In his innovate new book, The Nature of International Law, Miodrag Jovanović properly brings international law back to the center of jurisprudential inquiry. As important, Jovanović offers an important challenge to, and alternative to, conceptual analysis, in his prototype theory.' Brian H. Bix, Frederick W. Thomas Professor of Law and Philosophy, University of Minnesota