This Essay takes up Abebe, Chilton, and Ginsburg’s invitation to use a social science approach to establish or ascertain some facts about international law scholarship in the United States. The specific research question that this Essay seeks to answer is to what extent scholarship has addressed international law’s historical and continuing complicity in producing racial inequality and hierarchy, including slavery, as well as the subjugation and domination of the peoples of the First Nations.
22.1
Summer
2021
This Comment argues that legal sex work, when regulated adequately, comports with international law and promotes the human rights of sex workers that are curbed when the practice is outlawed.
This Essay brings Abebe, Chilton, and Ginsburg’s Lead Essay into conversation with the literature on comparative international law to ask whether the social scientific approach to international law is “international.” In particular, this Essay takes the case of scholarship on international law in China to examine why or why not particular methodological and theoretical perspectives on international law may gain traction in certain jurisdictions’ legal academies.
This Essay argues that an uncritical embrace of social science methods risks losing much of what draws people to international law and what has, over the centuries, given it value. As a work in progress in which academics have a special role to play, a commitment merely to take international law “as it is” is not neutral; it is a value statement in itself.
This Essay offers a critical yet constructive reading of the social science approach to international law.
This Essay critically assesses how and why one might use socio-legally inspired methods (analytical, empirical, and normative) for the study of international economic law (IEL) in Africa.
This Essay describes the rise of the social science approach in international law scholarship and advocates for its continued adoption.