The paper proposes to define international law as the common legal order created by two or more autonomous legal systems. International law has traditionally been defined based on its subjects or in combination with other disciplines. These definitions, devised over the past two centuries, have been increasingly overtaken by developments in the international community in recent decades. This essay proposes another way of constructing a definition of international law, based on legal systems. This approach has several advantages: it provides a legal definition for a legal analysis, it makes the notion of international subject independent from the definition of international law, it provides much more flexibility to explain current international phenomena, it reinterprets the concept of anarchy in international relations, and it allows the analysis of international laws in force at different times and in different geographies.
Keywords:
Derecho internacional, teoría del derecho, historia del derecho internacional, subjetividad internacional, fuentes del derecho internacional
Author Biography
Francisco Sáez Zamora, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina
Francisco Sáez Zamora es abogado y docente de derecho internacional público en la Facultad de Derecho de la Universidad de Buenos Aires, cátedra Pinto-Luterstein.
Sáez Zamora, F. (2021). + A pragmatic approach to the concept of International Law: International Law as a common legal order?. Revista Tribuna Internacional, 10(19), 89–118. https://doi.org/10.5354/0719-482X.2021.59570
