International Law in Times of Anti-Globalism and Populism—Challenges Ahead

Abstract

This chapter comments on Jan Wouters’ analysis of anti-globalist and populist challenges for international law. It offers a threefold approach consisting of recommendations for an effective multilateralism, efforts to strengthen the United Nations, and to include multilateralism in the domestic political agenda of Western democracies. It concludes by submitting that the output legitimacy of international law understood as the very substance of international law, and the advantages it creates for states (and their respective populations) might eventually undo the current populist developments.