The Multifaceted Notion of Time in International Law

Abstract

Although time forms a part of the very bedrock of international law as a legal order and fundamentally determines international law as a discipline, the relationship between time and international law has received only limited attention. To most international lawyers, time appears as simply a technical problem, and mainstream international law doctrine presents international law as essentially atemporal. However, such attitudes obscure the complex temporalities involved in international law and the choices that have underpinned them. Time in international law is profoundly multifaceted, and there is a significant intra-disciplinary diversity in the understanding of the relationship between international law and time. Nevertheless, international law and international lawyers may be said to primarily cope and engage with time in two main—albeit intertwined—ways: through the construction of narratives and through the development of legal techniques.