International Law's Collected Stories

Book excerpt: This edited volume presents a collection of stories that experiment with different ways of looking at international law. By using different literary lenses -namely, storytelling, the novel, the drama, the collage, the self-portrait, and the museum- the authors shed light on elements of international law that usually remain unseen or unheard and expose the limits of what international law can do. We inquire into who the storytellers of international law are, the stages on which they tell their stories, and who are absent in these tales. We present it as a collection: a set of different essays that more or less deal with the same subject matter. Alternatively, we would like to call it a potpourri of stories, since the diversity of topics and approaches is eclectic and unconventional. By placing multiple perspectives alongside each other we aim to compare and contrast, to allow for second thoughts, and to rediscover. In doing so, we engage with the ambiguities of international law’s characters and spaces, and with the worldviews they reflect and worlds they create.