Contribution to Book
What Moves Law? Martti Koskenniemi and Transcendence in International Law
The Law of International Lawyers. Reading Martti Koskenniemi
(2017)
Abstract
In this text, I will attempt to understand the relation between metaphysical assumption and argumentative movement in Martti Koskenniemi’s work. I shall try to elaborate the particular form it takes, and think about the implications of that form along the way.
Koskenniemi rejects the translation of universal justice into the concrete practice of norms and institutions. He works in a radically Pauline tradition of thought. The Pauline tradition explains why he is so popular, while the radical spin explains the scepticism he meets. Karl Barth, the Swiss theologian, once set out an analogy of faith (analogia fidei) as a counterposition to the Catholic analogy of being. It is in hope alone that international lawyers participate in the coming community. Barth thought theology without religion; Koskenniemi thinks redemption without creation.
Keywords
- International law,
- transcendence,
- Erich Przywara,
- Martti Koskenniemi
Disciplines
Publication Date
2017
Editor
Wouter Werner, Marieke de Hoon & Alexis Galán
Publisher
Cambridge University Press
Citation Information
Gregor Noll. "What Moves Law? Martti Koskenniemi and Transcendence in International Law" The Law of International Lawyers. Reading Martti Koskenniemi (2017) Available at: http://works.bepress.com/gregor_noll/60/