International Cooperation Without Just Distributions? Beginning to Map the Role of Rising Economic Inequality in the Formation and Evolution of and Adherence to International Law

The argument in this paper is that international lawyers—scholars and practitioners alike—should be cognisant of the fact that different economic distributions within nations will lead to the establishment of different international legal systems in terms of their formation and evolution, as well as in relation to the extent to which they are respected and adhered to. Rising economic inequality within nations is an issue of incredible systemic importance to international law; it should be pushed further up the agenda when it comes to devising the laws between them because this will, on balance, assist in creating a more peaceful and prosperous world underpinned by an effective law of nations that is up to the types of contemporary challenges which of necessity require more cooperation between states. Accordingly, from the perspective of this paper, international lawyers should, at a minimum do the following (i) give consideration to the direction of distributional trends within nations when attempting to understand how current international law works (i.e. how it formed, evolves and the extent to which it is respected and adhered to); (ii) give consideration to these same trends when conceptualising and designing the international law(s) of the future and (iii) to the extent necessary, think about the development of the mechanisms at the international law level that encourage and enable the reduction of economic inequality within nations with a view to ensuring that the better functioning, at a systemic level, of the international legal system in general, as well as the various parts of which that system is comprised.