Fault Lines of International Legitimacy

By: Hilary Charlesworth and Jean-Marc Coicaud

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Synopsis: Fault Lines of International Legitimacy deals with the following questions: What are the features and functions of legitimacy in the international realm? How does international legitimacy, as exemplified in particular by multilateral norms, organizations, and policies, change over time? What role does the international distribution of power and its evolution have in the establishment and transformation of legitimacy paradigms? To what extent do democratic values account for the growing importance of legitimacy and the increasing difficulty of achieving it at the international and the national level? One of the central messages of the book is that, although the search for international legitimacy is an elusive endeavor, there is no alternative to it if we want to respond to the intertwined demands of justice and security and make them an integral and strategic part of international relations.