Tenses

In our chapter, we focus on a particular facet of the grammar of international law, namely its tenses. The tenses of international law are conflicted, supporting and supported by a basic temporal condition that is at once idealistic and anti-teleological, sometimes described as caught between apology and utopia. We look past the binary textual analysis of international law to explore the multiple dimensions of its tenses, including the constructive pressures that sustain and animate international law, the anxieties that manifest in practice and critique, and the materialities and logics associated with its reproduction over time. The image that may be drawn, for abstract purposes, is one in which the frustration of international law's universalistic promise is a function of the self-denying tension that sustains international legal practice.