The philosophy of international law in contemporary scholarship: overcoming negligence through the global expansion of human rights

The paper aims to analyze the relative neglect often given to international law under philosophy of law studies. Within this context, the relationship between law an reasoning in the light of the international realm is taken in a broader level to understand the role played by this field of knowledge in H.L.A. Hart’s The Concept of Law, among other works of reference. With the consolidation of normative and jurisprudential work of several international fora, such as the United Nations, its affiliate agencies, and many international courts other than the International Court of Justice, international law has given rise to several legal phenomena worth understanding through a philosophical perspective. Regardless of the field of study, whether humanitarian law, international economic law, or transnational justice, the social and political role international law plays nowadays has been growing exponentially. Notwithstanding its importance, there is a current negligence to the philosophy of international law among authors from all over the world. Despite researching fields such as distributive justice, group justice and transnational justice, not enough though is put into understanding current legal theories behind international law, neither into the possibility of conceiving a moral theory in the context of legal pluralism. In view of these main issues, the article aims not only to examine international law as a viable field of study for the philosophy of law in the context of legal pluralism, but also to further understand its developmental consequences for the international order.