Abstract

A quarter-century anniversary offers an opportunity for reflection and reckoning. The twenty-first century’s first quarter brought significant shifts to international law, international institutions, and the commitment of dominant states to the international rule of law. This symposium issue of the Washington University Global Studies Law Review takes stock of the shift across three domains: international criminal law, international economic law, and global governance. In each of these areas, the post-Cold War ambitions of international law were on the rise at the turn of the century. The World Trade Organization had been established, and its institutionally ambitious dispute-settlement system was beginning to function. The International Criminal Court was on the horizon. Multilateralism appeared inevitable, grounded in the widely shared belief that international law could deepen and stabilize global cooperation, keep the peace, spread democracy, and “lift all boats.”

That turn of the century moment of globalist aspiration also brought the founding of the Whitney R. Harris World Law Institute and the Global Studies Law Review. The Institute bears the name of Whitney R. Harris, the last surviving member of Justice Robert Jackson’s prosecution team at Nuremberg, who lived nearly a century and gave generously to the institution that now carries his name. His gift was an expression of a conviction rooted in an even earlier international legal moment: that law could be made to restrain power and that institutions devoted to international law were worth building and sustaining. The Global Studies Law Review was founded in that same spirit.

Keywords: Global Studies Law Review, Whitney R. Harris World Law Institute, quarter-century anniversary