Sovereignty is transformed. Governmental authority is horizontally and vertically dispersed. States have accepted treaty regimes whereby international authorities exercise regulatory power that interferes with domestic governance. International organs are increasingly endowed with something resembling legislative powers. Dispute-settling bodies proliferate on the international plane. We are increasingly aware of the considerable influence exercised by the private sector on international decision-making processes. In short, today’s international law is constituted by polycentric decision-making structures and fragmented spheres of law. This ‘new international law’ is a patch-work of norms, institutions and actors on various overlapping levels.
The current discourse of international law is certainly acquainted with the enormity of challenges posed by rapid restructuring of domestic and international governance to conventional outlooks, theories and practices of international law. Indeed, today’s research forefront thrives on studies that encapsulate, analyse and discuss the shift from a world made up by sovereign nation-states to today’s inter-, supra- and transnational arrangements.
This is not to say that the academic debate is over. Even ‘new’ international law relates to fundamental theoretical schemes that were central to traditional conceptions of international law. Contemporary research must take into account concepts such as the status and shape of sovereignty, prospects for democracy and the rule of law, the stability of prevalent dichotomies such as international/domestic and private/public domains and the functionality and efficacy of international norms and institutions. Interaction between legal practitioners, theorists and academics in various are promising in this regard. What may traditional legal discourse benefit from, say, theories of multi-level governance? Would not the development of theoretical models encapsulating ‘new international law’ profit from the empiricism of doctrinal legal studies? Such exchanges may develop increased academic sensitivity and comprehension of the complexities of contemporary decision-making structures and spheres of law.