The Dynamic and Sometimes Uneasy Relationship Between Foreign Relations Law and International Law

Abstract

The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Foreign Relations Law, published in 2019, ambitiously sought ‘to lay the groundwork for a new field of study and teaching’. The present volume usefully complements that effort by focusing, from a comparative perspective, on how foreign relations law interacts with international law. In this concluding chapter, I reflect on the relationship between these two bodies of law, drawing on examples from this volume and also from the Handbook. As will become evident, foreign relations law and international law have important and often underappreciated effects on each other, sometimes in ways that are constructive andmutually reinforcing, but at other times in ways that produce potential conflict.