6 Self-destruction

This chapter claims that international legal thought and practice are replete with self-destructive claims about customary international law. It discusses the discursive performance that mirrors a very common feature of modern thinking and commonly nurtured rejuvenation through self-defeat, highlighting international legal thought and practice that contain plenty of manifestations of discursive self destruction. It also mentions the discursive performance found in the discourse on customary international law. The chapter reviews the multiple materializations of the self-destructive moves in the discourse on customary international law. It shows that a discursive performance constitutes a mode of administering the doctrine of customary international law and that the repeated findings of malfunctioning of customary international law carry elaborate and fine representations.