3 Participants in the International Legal System

In this chapter we address the questions: What is the reach of international law? To whom does it apply? And, given its decentralized, horizontal nature, who are the participants in the international legal system? It is possible, as I have sought to explain, to view international law as a body of neutral rules or, as I prefer, as a flow of authoritative decision-making, with all that that implies. The classic view has been that international law applies only to states. But, as we will see, there is a growing perception that it is relevant to international actors...