First of all, I need to say thank you to all the contributors to the current
symposium on my book, The Oxford Guide to Treaties. It’s quite common in academic circles to have symposia on “affairs of the day” (and, to be clear, those affairs often trigger very important issues like targeted killing, cyberwar, climate change, the EU fiscal crisis, etc.). But, I think it’s equally important to step back from time to time and have conversations about the international legal system itself, of which treaty law and practice now...