Tracing Value Change in the International Legal Order: Perspectives from Legal and Political Science

International law is constantly navigating the tension between preserving the status quo and adapting to new exigencies. But when and how do such adaptation processes give way to a more profound transformation, if not a crisis of international law? To address the question of how attacks on the international legal order are changing the value orientation of international law, this book brings together scholars of international law and international relations.

By combining theoretical and methodological analyses with individual case studies, this book offers readers conceptualizations and tools to systematically examine value change and explore the drivers and mechanisms of these processes. These case studies scrutinize value change in the foundational norms of the post-1945 order and in norms representing the rise of the international legal order post-1990. They cover diverse issues: the prohibition of torture, the protection of women's rights, the prohibition of the use of force, the nonproliferation of nuclear weapons, sustainability norms, and accountability for core international crimes. The challenges to each norm, the reactions by norm defenders, and the fate of each norm are also studied. Combined, the analyses show that while a few norms have remained surprisingly robust, several are changing, either in substance or in legal or social validity. The book concludes by integrating the conceptual and empirical insights from this interdisciplinary exchange to assess and explain the ambiguous nature of value change in international law beyond the extremes of mere progress or decline.

Heike Krieger, Chair for International and Public Law, Freie Universitat Berlin, Germany, Andrea Liese, Professor of International Relations, University of Potsdam, Germany

Heike Krieger is the Chair for International and Public Law at the Freie Universität Berlin. She is Chair of the Berlin Potsdam Research Group (KFG) 'The International Rule of Law - Rise or Decline?', Vice Chair of the German Society for International Law, and member of the Senate of the German Research Foundation. Between 2007 and 2014 she acted as a judge of the Constitutional Court of the State of Berlin. Her research focuses on general international law, international human rights law, and international humanitarian law. She is Editor-in-Chief of the Yearbook of International Humanitarian Law.

Andrea Liese is Professor of International Relations at the University of Potsdam and a member of the Berlin Potsdam Research Group (KFG) 'The International Rule of Law - Rise or Decline?' She held research and teaching positions at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, at Freie Universität Berlin, and at the University of Bremen. She was also a Visiting Fellow at the Berlin Social Science Center (WZB) and a John F Kennedy Memorial Fellow at Harvard University. Her research focuses on the authority, expertise, and neutrality of international organizations and on norm collisions in international politics.