there are serious limits to international law from the perspective of both morality and realpolitik. Excessive legalisation threatens to ‘crowd out’ other important goods and shrink our capacity for sophisticated moral and political thought. Looking at issues through a legal filter has a worrying impact on our ability to discharge our moral and prudential responsibilities.

Ryder McKeown, ‚International law and its discontents: Exploring the dark sides of international law in International Relations‘ (2017) 43/3 Review of International Studies 430, 432