Complexity as a Methodology in International Law

Abstract

Chapter 2 explains how we can use complexity theory to make sense of the international law system. Drawing on the insights of our colleagues in the natural sciences, it shows how we can conceptualize international law as the emergent property of the actions and interactions of states, evolving as states respond to unexpected changes in the behaviours of other states or occurrences in the outside world. The work takes the key insights from complexity—self-organization, emergence and downward causation, problem-solving, synchronic evolution, bifurcations, path dependence, events, and attractors—and shows how these can be applied to international law.