EJIL : Debate!
Abstract
This brief article, in offering a critical evaluation of Emmanuelle Tourme-Jouannet’s fascinating project on the Law of Recognition, provides some critical remarks on the anthropomorphic moves observed in the international legal scholarship. It simultaneously reflects on the resort to philosophy as a tool for persuasive authority in the processes of creating knowledge about international law. Against this backdrop, the article, while submitting that the Law of Recognition should not be seen as yet another naïve pursuit of equality, universalism, and dignity in denial of the deceitfulness and contradictions inherent in such moral objectivism, argues that the Law of Recognition designed by Emmanuelle Tourme-Jouannet is riven with significant functional and methodological instability which frustrates the possibility of creating new knowledge about international law.
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