Tu Globalista: Lo que sucede en el mundo.

To talk about international law as a complex system is also to deal with the central element of a system, the agents. If international law is seen from complexity theory, then it brings some elements of doubt as to what could be the central element of study that composes such a system. In this case, we will be dealing with the «agents.»

To talk about agents hence comes from a different perspective of classical international relations theory of agency, where an agent represents the will of the principal. Under complex system theories, the agents are a series of independent elements that interact to each other. From complexity theory applied to economics, the agents are basically banks, firms, consumers, and governments, since they interact with each other creating a nonlinear behavior of the economy, that is a type of positive feedback that draws the economy away from its equilibrium.

In following such argument, international law is also composed of agents. This view challenges the classical view to look at international law as a series of norms or principles, such norms, and principles are just the result of the interaction of agents. So who are the agents in international law? In my perspective are states, international organizations, law firms, international courts, arbitral tribunals, academics, think tanks, etc. Any type of entity that uses instruments of international law, those instruments are laws, principles, and the whole array of sources of international law.

In my perspective, the agents are the ones that imbue with character a given system. In the case at hand, the invisible college of international law also gives a certain character to international law, the interactions of these type of agents, gives a certain character to international law, that causes a type of third-order nonlinear effect, that is, to be far from «equilibrium», it is messy but ordered at the same time.

How do the agents, in this case, the members of the invisible college interact with each other? I guess the interaction is in the form of articles, commentaries, books, conferences, even interactions in social media, where the agents have limited rationality with hopes and fears of the future, and personal goals.

All of that, the agents are the ones that with their actions shape and create and re-create international law. To look more profoundly into the interactions of the agents in the complex system of international law, can bring us a new perspective on how international law behaves, the nonlinearities, the risks and expectations. In sum, to see international law as something that is in a continued state of flow and change.