Includes bibliographical references (p. [401]-416) and index.

Preliminary Material / E. MacDonald -- Chapter I. The Scope And Aims Of The Book / E. MacDonald -- Chapter II. International Law And The Critical Challenge / E. MacDonald -- Chapter III. Reactions To The Critical Challenge / E. MacDonald -- Chapter IV. A Common Problematic / E. MacDonald -- Chapter V. Foucault, Ethics And Enlightenment / E. MacDonald -- Chapter VI. Rorty, Epistemology And Literature / E. MacDonald -- Chapter VII. The Foundations Of A Post-Foundational Ethics / E. MacDonald -- Chapter VIII. Kratochwil, Rhetoric And Communicative Action / E. MacDonald -- Chapter IX. Korhonen, Situationality And “The Cave” / E. MacDonald -- Chapter X. Franck, Democracy And Fairness / E. MacDonald -- Chapter XI. Rawls And The Law Of Peoples / E. MacDonald -- Chapter XII. From Contradiction To Aporia / E. MacDonald -- Chapter XIII. The Recovery Of Rhetoric / E. MacDonald -- Chapter XIV. The Expansion Of Rhetoric / E. MacDonald -- Chapter XV. The Rhetoric Of Eunomia / E. MacDonald -- Chapter XVI. Framing The Legal Within The Post-Foundational / E. MacDonald -- Bibliography / E. MacDonald -- Index / E. MacDonald.

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Around twenty years ago, a challenge was laid down to international law by those writing at the critical periphery of the discipline; a challenge that has yet to find satisfactory response. Although often (mistakenly) characterised as nihilist, this book seeks to recast it in positive terms; to pose the question of what – if anything – is left of international law and ethics if we accept both that apolitical rules are impossible and that the values that must – inevitably – be used to justify them are irreducibly, radically subjective. After detailed analyses of different political and international legal philosophers who have confronted this issue, the answer is located in a “turn to literature” and a rehabilitation of the ancient notion of rhetoric.