Liberal or Not?

This chapter is a comment on Jean d’Aspremont’s suggestion that the very question of the rise and decline of international law is an expression of liberal thinking as predominant in international law and that the conception of non-state actors depends on liberal theory. While there is no doubt that both the question about the rise and decline of international law and the very concept of non-state actors is compatible with liberal theory, the chapter argues that the connection is much looser than assumed by d’Aspremont. In doing so, this chapter discusses different versions of liberal theory and then goes on to show that different social theories may have varying notions of the law, but most of them are definitely interested in the question of the rise or decline of law. Similarly, the relationship between the rise of international law and non-state actors is multifaceted and of potential interest for liberal, realist, and critical theory.