Placing International Law: The Techniques of Jurisdiction (Space, Materiality and the Normative)

This book how addresses how international law is ‘placed’ in the world. International lawyers have long acknowledged the significance of space and place to their work, often in a territorial register. As this book demonstrates, however, the repertoire of international legal techniques for determining law’s spatiality, and for attaching law to place, is far broader than commonly acknowledged. Adopting a jurisdictional orientation, this book provides insights into how techniques and practices of legal ‘placement’ are carried out, how they assume authority, and how they relate to one another. Whilst drawing on the burgeoning field of legal geography, the book does not simply apply its insights to international law. Rather, in examining five techniques of placement and areas of substantive concern for international lawyers – (1) longitudinal placement in relation to time; (2) state placement in relation to economy; (3) city placement in relation to crime; (4) associational placement in relation to data; (5) placement of international encounter in relation to the sea – the book demonstrates law’s role in establishing its own spatiality. An original analysis at the intersection of international law and legal geography, this book is intended to appeal to both scholars and students in these fields.