How (Il)liberal is the Liberal Theory of Law? Some Critical Remarks on Slaughter’s Approach

Abstract

This article explores the limits of Anne-Marie Slaughter's liberal theory of (international) law. Despite her admirable interdisciplinary work, Slaughter falls prey to proposing largely technical solutions based on best practices and buttressed by universal norms. She thereby misses the purpose of law as a source of meaning, not to mention the historicity and content-independent authority of law that can be legitimized only politically. Despite all universality, a closer look reveals that the practices of the US are taken to be best practices which then make them part of an imperial project. They are not a means of mediating between the inevitable cultural, political, and historical tensions that are part of our predicament.