Between Power and principle Yet the blame for todays crisis atmosphere cannot be laid in Bush's lap. While the Bush administration fanned the flames of concern, the issue of what role international law can play in regulating international relations has bedeviled the world community for decades After World War Il, even as the world pressed ahead with the United Nations and other nev international institutions, widespread dismay over the failure of earlier institutions to prevent the collapse of order prompted a wave of attacks on the Wilsonian ideal of an international system founded on global legal order. As long as there was no sovereign power to manage enforcement, critics argued, international law was meaningless. Regarding it as otherwise was not just unrealistic but dangerous In the face of these attacks, international lawyers have worked assiduously to refine, interpret, and apply international law. But they have not yet done enough to respond to the ever more intense concerns about the fields validity. It is perhaps not surprising, then, that S See, for example, Hans J. Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations(Knopf 3d ed 1966) (offering a realist critique of international law); Edward Hallett Carr, The Twenty Years Crisis: 1919-1932(MacMillan 2d ed 1946)(same); Hans J. Morgenthau, Positivism, Functionalism, and International Law, 34 AmJ Intl L 260(1940)(same) See, for example, Raymond Aron, The Anarchical Order of Power, in Stanley Hoffman, ed, Conditions of World Order 25, 47(Houghton 1968)(concluding that international society is an anarchical order of power in which might is supreme); Charles W Briggs, The Cloudy Prospects for "Peace Through Law, 46 ABA J 490, 493-95(1960) (acknowledging that international law can only be enforced by a world sovereign, but concluding that establishment of a world government is a dream) 6 Louis Henkin writes: "These depreciations of international law challenge much of what the international lawyer does. Indeed, some lawyers seem to despair for international law until there is world government or at least effective international organization. " Lou Henkin, How Nations Behave: Law and Foreign Policy 25-26( Columbia 2d ed 1979)). For more, see Part II. There are, of course, exceptions. For example, the " new stream scholarship has long been critical of traditional approaches to international law. See generally Jason Mark Anderman, Note, Swimming the New Stream: The Disjunctions Between and Within Popular and Academic International Law, 6 Duke J Comp Intl L 293(1996) (criticizing the traditional"new world order?"international law theory and concluding that the "new stream?"academic international law theory is logically and morally superior); Nigel Purvis, Critical Legal Studies in Public International Law, 32 Harv Intl L J 81(1991) (discussing traditional international law theory's reduction to marginality due to its impossibility); Anthony Carty, Critical International Law: Recent Trends in the Theory of International Law, 2 Eur J Intl L 66(1991)(providing an analytic presentation of the main themes of four contemporary international law scholars, all of whom advocate nontraditional concepts of international law and criticize traditional international legal theory); Phillip r. Trimble, International Law, World Order, and Critical Legal Studies, 42 Stan L Rev 811(1990)(reviewing Lung-Chu Chen, An Introduction to Contemporary International Law: A Policy-Oriented Perspective(Yale 1989); Richard A. Falk, Revitalizing International Law(lowa State 1989); David Kennedy, International Legal Structures (Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft 1987): Martti Koskenniemi, From Apology to Utopia: The Structure of International Legal Argument(Finnish Lawyers'1989); David Kennedy, A New Stream ofBetween Power and Principle 2 Yet the blame for today’s crisis atmosphere cannot be laid in Bush’s lap. While the Bush administration fanned the flames of concern, the issue of what role international law can play in regulating international relations has bedeviled the world community for decades. After World War II, even as the world pressed ahead with the United Nations and other new international institutions, widespread dismay over the failure of earlier institutions to prevent the collapse of order prompted a wave of attacks on the Wilsonian ideal of an international system founded on global legal order.3 As long as there was no sovereign power to manage enforcement, critics argued, international law was meaningless. Regarding it as otherwise was not just unrealistic but dangerous.4 In the face of these attacks, international lawyers have worked assiduously to refine, interpret, and apply international law. But they have not yet done enough to respond to the ever more intense concerns about the field’s validity.5 It is perhaps not surprising, then, that 3 See, for example, Hans J. Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations (Knopf 3d ed 1966) (offering a realist critique of international law); Edward Hallett Carr, The Twenty Years’ Crisis: 1919–1939 (MacMillan 2d ed 1946) (same); Hans J. Morgenthau, Positivism, Functionalism, and International Law, 34 Am J Intl L 260 (1940) (same). 4 See, for example, Raymond Aron, The Anarchical Order of Power, in Stanley Hoffman, ed, Conditions of World Order 25, 47 (Houghton 1968) (concluding that international society is an anarchical order of power in which might is supreme); Charles W. Briggs, The Cloudy Prospects for “Peace Through Law,” 46 ABA J 490, 493–95 (1960) (acknowledging that international law can only be enforced by a world sovereign, but concluding that establishment of a world government is a dream). 5 Louis Henkin writes: “These depreciations of international law challenge much of what the international lawyer does. Indeed, some lawyers seem to despair for international law until there is world government or at least effective international organization.” Louis Henkin, How Nations Behave: Law and Foreign Policy 25–26 (Columbia 2d ed 1979)). For more, see Part II. There are, of course, exceptions. For example, the “new stream” scholarship has long been critical of traditional approaches to international law. See generally Jason Mark Anderman, Note, Swimming the New Stream: The Disjunctions Between and Within Popular and Academic International Law, 6 Duke J Comp & Intl L 293 (1996) (criticizing the traditional “new world order” international law theory and concluding that the “new stream” academic international law theory is logically and morally superior); Nigel Purvis, Critical Legal Studies in Public International Law, 32 Harv Intl L J 81 (1991) (discussing traditional international law theory’s reduction to marginality due to its impossibility); Anthony Carty, Critical International Law: Recent Trends in the Theory of International Law, 2 Eur J Intl L 66 (1991) (providing an analytic presentation of the main themes of four contemporary international law scholars, all of whom advocate nontraditional concepts of international law and criticize traditional international legal theory); Phillip R. Trimble, International Law, World Order, and Critical Legal Studies, 42 Stan L Rev 811 (1990) (reviewing Lung-Chu Chen, An Introduction to Contemporary International Law: A Policy-Oriented Perspective (Yale 1989); Richard A. Falk, Revitalizing International Law (Iowa State 1989); David Kennedy, International Legal Structures (Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft 1987)); Martti Koskenniemi, From Apology to Utopia: The Structure of International Legal Argument (Finnish Lawyers’ 1989); David Kennedy, A New Stream of