Non-Legality in International Law Unruly Law [Paperback]

Shows how international lawyers make non-law (extra-legal, illegal and other non-legal phenomena) and why this matters in global politics today.As international lawyers make law, they make non-law. Understandings of extra-legality, illegality and the like help shape the limits of global political possibility. Fleur Johns explores how non-legality is crafted in areas ranging from torture to foreign investment and from climate change to disaster relief and explains why this matters.As international lawyers make law, they make non-law. Understandings of extra-legality, illegality and the like help shape the limits of global political possibility. Fleur Johns explores how non-legality is crafted in areas ranging from torture to foreign investment and from climate change to disaster relief and explains why this matters.International lawyers typically start with the legal. What is a legal as opposed to a political question? How should international law adapt to the unforeseen? These are the routes by which international lawyers typically reason. This book begins, instead, with the non-legal. In a series of case studies, Fleur Johns examines what international lawyers cast outside or against law  as extra-legal, illegal, pre-legal or otherwise non-legal  and how this comes to shape political possibility. Non-legality is not merely the remainder of regulatory action. It is a key structuring device of contemporary global order. Constructions of non-legality are pivotal to debate in areas ranging from torture to foreign investment and from climate change to natural disaster relief. Understandings of non-legality inform what international lawyers today do and what they refrain from doing. Tracing and potentially reimagining the non-legal in international legal work is, accordingly, both vital and pressing.1. Making non-legalities in international law; 2. Illegality and the torture memos; 3. Black holes and the outside within: extra-legality at Guant?namo; 4. Doing deals: prel�