The Empirical Turn in International Legal Scholarship

TLDR

International legal scholarship is undergoing an empirical turn, building on decades of theory to study how international law operates in varied contexts and under specific conditions. This paper aims to assess the conditions under which international law is formed and has effects, and to evaluate the emerging multidisciplinary, multimethod empirical scholarship.

Abstract

There is a new empirical turn in international legal scholarship. Building on decades of theoretical work in law and social science, a new generation of empirical studies is elaborating on how international law works in different contexts. The theoretical debate over whether international law matters is a stale one. What matters now is the study of the conditions under which international law is formed and has effects. International law is the product of specific forces and factors; it accomplishes its ends under particular conditions. The trend toward empirical study has expanded through the efforts of scholars in multiple disciplines, with legal scholars playing central roles independently and as collaborators in generating new empirical work. Legal scholars are also now pressed to be increasingly sophisticated consumers of this work. It is time to take stock and evaluate this new generation of multidisciplinary, multimethod empirical scholarship.