Dystopian International Law

In 2025, we international lawyers-and the legal system in which we operate-are standing at the precipice.That things are beyond bad should not be in doubt. 1 This is not some run-of-the-mill crisis of the kind that international lawyers revel in, as Hilary Charlesworth warned us against. 2 This is collapse, or something collapse-adjacent.And we are not alone, here at the precipice.Everyone else is here too.Some don't think things are as catastrophic as they first seem.Some are delighted with how things are going (though there are few international lawyers among them).Some are despairing (and here the international lawyers are legion).Everyone is anxious.I, too, am anxious, standing here at the precipice.I see the looming catastrophe, for our world and for our field.The catastrophe is already here.It is in Gaza, in Sudan, in Ukraine.It is in the global decline of democracy and rising authoritarianism, including in the United States, the linchpin of the current international order.The question is how big this catastrophe is going to get, and what will come after it.And that we just don't know.We can't know, standing, as we are, here at the precipice.In this Essay, I would like to imagine, as an international lawyer, where the international legal system could go as we leave this precipice behind.The world we will live in in ten or