Butler on Neff, 'Justice among Nations: A History of International Law'
This is about a book that you will never buy or even read, unless you are working on a degree in the field.
https://networks.h-net.org/node/28443/reviews/33941/butler-neff-justice-among-nations-history-international-law
But still, there are some interesting snippets of info here:
The book is intended for university students and a general readership of all ages and beyond. Neff is guided in his coverage by his own perception of what students need to comprehend when studying international law. He describes the history of international law as the “scientific study of the emergence of order out of chaos.” How, he says in asking the eternal question, “is it possible–even in theory let alone in practice–to have a ‘legal system’ of any kind between states when there is no ruler to promulgate it? Where does it come from? And why is it obeyed?” International law for Neff, therefore, “is not so much a list of rules” as a response of states and the international community to the challenge of “devising answers” to these queries (p. 2).
His book, therefore, may be described as “the story for answers to these questions (and similar ones) over the course of human history” (p. 2). Neff’s concern is less for the actual substance of international law and more for how international law has been interpreted, how it has been applied in practice, and “above all” how the answers to the questions he raises have changed over the years. Thus Neff endorses the value of comparative international law. Indeed, he observes that it would be a “great error” to imagine international law to be a “single, unitary phenomenon” (p. 3). He enjoys maritime analogies: international law as a large ship subject to constant refittings; or as a river perpetually in flow but constantly eroding its banks, changing shape, sometimes in flood, other times drought.
. . .
In an entirely different context than one usually encounters, Neff concludes that “in a world that is regarded as containing, ultimately, only one country or one single system, there can hardly be any such thing as international law” (p. 39). One encounters similar sentiments in interwar literature on comparative law (for example, H. C. Gutteridge’s Comparative Law [1949]), where it was argued that the law of nations had no place in comparative law because of its avowed universality (there was nothing to compare it to) or because of the uniqueness as a legal system in principle. Similar argumentation was adduced with respect to natural law, which has held to be universal and eternal, that is, the same for all historical time periods.
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Seems to me that Trump's position that the world should consist of sovereign nations with bilateral treaties between them, is a strong endorsement for the existence of international law.
He is rejecting the NWO view that all law should flow from one single global ruler. This makes sense for someone whose career is steeped in business competition, and making deals, because it values the flexibility for relationships to rearrange themselves based on circumstance. The NWO model is rigid and unyielding and would inevitably lead to disaster when circumstances change. That is because with one politically correct viewpoint, there is no alternative to rise up to prominence when the prevailing way of doing things proves to be no longer workable.