A very insightful and well-argued post, thank you. However, in relation to your suggestion for international realists to take note of the Iraq inquiry, two points.

First, realists are not incompatible with the idea of the importance of international law; in fact international law can be used as a tool to increase the power/security (Waltz) of nation-states, which, of course, opens a whole new can of worms. This relates to my second point – whatever the Iraqi enquiry concludes (and with Dame Higgins as the only international lawyer on the bench as you point out and not an entirely unorthodox one at that), I am not sure that it will necessarily clarify the importance of international law, per se or merely the disguising of further instances of ‘use of force’ in the cloak of international law. Which is really the last thing we need right now.

Best,
Isha