At a moment when international law is routinely described as ineffective, selective, or even obsolete, Not Dead Yet – International Law in an Age of Uncertainty offers a deliberately counter-intuitive intervention.
The 2025 International Law Report was prepared by Lex International, a philanthropic initiative dedicated to reinforcing the international legal order by reshaping narratives and supporting new coalitions across governments, international organizations, civil society, and academia .
The report is led by Federica Du Pasquier, affiliated with Lex International and Yale University, with contributions from Beatrice Fihn and Magnus Løvold, and research support from Alaa Hajyahia. Its intellectual genealogy is firmly rooted in contemporary academic debate, drawing in particular on exchanges with the Yale Law School Center for Global Legal Challenges and on discussions held during a high-level roundtable in Geneva in 2025 .
What emerges is not a celebratory account of international law, nor a naïve defense of existing institutions, but a strategically framed argument. The report insists that international law has already reshaped the international system in profound ways, from the prohibition of territorial conquest to the stigmatization of inhumane methods of warfare, and that its current crisis is less a failure of norms than a failure of political commitment.
In this sense, Not Dead Yet is as much a diagnosis as it is a call to action, asking whether states are willing to invest in international law as a core component of security and foreign policy, rather than treating it as a disposable constraint when power politics reassert themselves .
The provenance of the report matters. It reflects a deliberate attempt to bridge empirical analysis, public opinion data, and legal argument, while remaining anchored in a broader strategic conversation about the future of the international legal order.
Whether one agrees with all of its conclusions or not, the report is best read as an invitation to take international law seriously again, not as moral rhetoric, but as a contested and fragile instrument of global governance.
However, there are several points that warrant a more critical reading, particularly at the methodological and interpretative levels.
First: the thesis concerning the “transformation of the international system after 1945” is consistent with a significant portion of the literature (e.g., Fazal, Zacher), but the “?95%” figure on territorial conquest is typically sensitive to the operational definition of “conquest” and to the dataset employed. It works as an indicator of a general trend rather than as a precise measurement. Moreover, the fact that no UN member state has disappeared through conquest does not imply the absence of serious violations of the principle of territorial integrity; rather, it points to a greater institutional resilience of the system.
Second: the section on international courts is correct in showing that functional alternatives to war do exist, but the report appears to adopt a selection bias toward “successful” cases. The cited examples (Nicaragua, Cameroon/Nigeria, Cambodia/Thailand) are valid, yet they belong to contexts in which at least one of the parties had incentives to comply. The enforcement problem—which you note—is in fact central, not peripheral: without credible coercive mechanisms, international law remains heavily dependent on the political will of states.
Third: regarding the limitation of wartime practices, the argument is plausible but requires qualification. Normative stigmatization (e.g., chemical weapons, landmines) has empirically documented effects, but it coexists with recurring violations. Analytically, one could argue that international humanitarian law has increased the reputational and political costs of certain conduct rather than eliminating it altogether. This is a non-trivial achievement, but it differs from generalized compliance.
Fourth: the comparison between law/diplomacy and military force is one of the more controversial parts. The references to Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Yemen are defensible in terms of problematic outcomes, but the counterfactual is difficult to establish. The JCPOA case provides stronger evidence of diplomatic effectiveness; however, even here the report seems to assume that the military alternative is necessarily worse without modelling intermediate or hybrid scenarios.
Fifth: the International Law Index is interesting, but it should be read as public opinion data rather than as an indicator of state behavior. The gap between citizens’ normative preferences (often very high, such as the 80–95% opposition to serious violations) and government decision-making is structural in international relations. Moreover, it would be useful to know the exact geographic distribution of the sample and the sampling methodology in order to assess the robustness of the findings.
Finally, the report’s conclusion—treating international law as a strategic instrument—is consistent with a realist-institutionalist approach: law is not an alternative to power politics, but a mechanism that enhances stability and predictability. The strongest claim is not that international law “always works,” but that it systematically reduces uncertainty and coordination costs compared to a purely anarchic system.
