Are Institutions and Empiricism Enough?

[Extract]
Legal philosophers have paid relatively little attention to international law in comparison to other topics, and philosophers working on international or global justice have not taken international law as a primary focus, either.1 Allen Buchanan’s recent work is arguably the most important exception to these trends. For over a decade he has devoted significant time and philosophical skill to questions central to international law, and has tied these concerns to related issues of global justice more generally. The book under review consists of 13 papers and a brief introduction, divided into sections on human rights, legitimacy, and the use of force. All of the papers were previously published
between 1999 and 2008. Although there is some overlap with Buchanan’s 2004 book on international law and justice,2 these papers largely complement and enrich the discussion from that volume, making their collection here a useful supplement to it and worthwhile in their own right. There is some overlap in the papers themselves, but not so much as to give the feeling of déjà vu that one often has when reading a collection of essays.