This project will critically reflect on the consequences of the growing confrontation between the defenders of the so-called ‘rules-based international order’ and the defenders of international law for the prospect of a law-governed world, or its potential collapse. We seek to gauge the implications of this normative divide for the ordering, protective and emancipatory functions of international law to grasp the direction in which the international legal order is heading—whether we are seeing the strengthening of existing rules or their unravelling and replacement with new ones. Finally, we explore what, if anything, can be done to shape these developments in a way that approximates humanity’s aspiration for a world ruled by the force of law, and not the law of force. 

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