Theory of International Law

Mónica García-Salmones is an LLD student and Research Fellow at the Erik Castrén Institute for International Law and Human Rights at the University of Helsinki, Finland. The post below introduces and summarises her recent article in the EJIL, the full text of which is available at the EJIL website (see here) The use of experts' power in global networks is often concealed by describing it in the register of scientific truths. My intention in this post is to illustrate this phenomenon by reference to the recent article in the EJIL by Cooney and Lang, 'Taking Uncertainty Seriously: Adaptive Governance and International Law'. The article provides a good introduction to that issue, to the extent that it offers a set of strong theoretical assumptions framing global governance as a field of knowledge to be conquered. Thus, Cooney and Lang advocate a leading role to scientific experts in global political decisions.  As the authors state in the introduction, the aim of their project is to address the pervasive uncertainty…