Law in crisis

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rozenberg.substack.com

The international legal order is facing profound disruption, a leading lawyer said last night. Professor Lord Verdirame KC said that institutions created or expanded after the end of the Cold War in 1989 had “too often responded with misguided moralistic fervour and interpretative maximalism, stretching mandates beyond what states consented to and thereby inviting the backlash that now jeopardises their legitimacy and survival”.

Verdirame, a practising barrister, professor of international law and non-affiliated peer, was delivering a lecture to the Society of Conservative Lawyers in memory of its long-serving member and honorary secretary Pamela Thomas. The society will be publishing his lecture in due course.

In an interview yesterday for A Lawyer Talks, Verdirame discussed the pivotal role of the United States and the current limitations of international law. “The international legal order is not falling apart,” he said. But it was now in crisis.

My weekly podcast is a bonus for paying subscribers to A Lawyer Writes. Everyone else can hear a short taster by clicking the ► symbol on the graphic at the top of this page.