Jonathan Zasloff

Power and International Law

A hundred years ago, the American Journal of International Law (AJIL) was founded by a group of publicists who believed that international law could abolish (or at least substantially diminish) the role of power in world affairs. So deep was this belief that it often served as a background operating assumption in international legal scholarship and did not even require discussion. But since 1940, dozens of articles in the Journal have focused on the relationship between law and power. Indeed, many AJIL articles have been written by scholars and practitioners whose life work has focused on power and international law—how power constrains international law (or dooms it to irrelevance), how the powerful can harness international law to their ends, and how international law may autonomously reconfigure power in its own right.

Cities, Land Use, and the Global Commons: Genesis and the Urban Politics of Climate Change

This Article, which will appear in a forthcoming volume from Cambridge University Press, seeks to situate local governments in the growth of international environmental governance. After considering the seminal decision of Genesis Power Ltd. v. Franklin District Council, it proposes that models from international relations theory could be adapted and altered to explain and predict local government behavior in global governance. In contrast to the widely-held - but rarely examined - consensus view, we suggest that local government might possess strong incentives to take action in mitigating climate change, and set forth a research agenda with testable propositions to determine whether such international local government theory has validity.

Dean's List: Power, Institutions, and Achesonian Diplomacy

This review essay, forthcoming in the American Journal of International Law, considers Robert Beisners recent magisterial biography of Dean Acheson. I ask what Achesons diplomatic record tells us about the nature of world politics, and consider the question in light of international relations theory and international legal thought. I argue that Achesonian diplomacy demonstrates the interrelatedness of the four major paradigms of international relations theory - realism, institutionalism, liberalism, and constructivism. Each theory explains a crucial part of the impact of Achesons record, but none can explain it by themselves. I suggest in conclusion that while the Cold War might have begun with or without Acheson, his diplomatic leadership helped ensure that it ended as soon as it did - even though he was gone by the time it occurred.