Where to go with international law?

With the last Climate Conference COP30 fresh in our minds, surrounded by the disappointment of those who recognise necessary action to counter climate change; the preparations for yet another uneventful Anti-Corruption Conference COSP11; and the debacle in Gaza and Sudan, you hear both that international law is dead and irrelevant, and that its standards are alive and necessary. You also hear that multilateralism is both: past, and that it is the future. To make things worse, all of these contradictory statements can be true. This is what sociologists call a paradox.1 Paradoxes can only be managed and not solved. We need international law and governance to work. Managing the paradox to achieve that requires innovation. Let’s explore how.

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