Tu Globalista: Lo que sucede en el mundo.

I really like the title of this article. Hopefully one day I could see it to get transformed into a book. To express, how complexity theory could bring into the fore, a new way of looking at international law. But, to get there there is a lot to be done. For now. I am just happy to see such title, following that of Brian Arthur, applying his thinking into economics.

Arthur’s proposal on the economy of complexity is that»the economy is not necessarily in equilibrium: economic agents (firms, consumers, investors) constantly change their actions and strategies in response to the outcome they mutually create.» in turn My proposal is the same, international law or complexity international law (CIL)

In this same sense is how I imagine and view international law, as a system that is not necessarily in equilibrium with legal agents, like law-firms, representatives of governments, bureaucrats of international organizations and NGO’s, professors of international law working in universities, and think tanks, and so on, that are in constant motion, they change their actions and select their strategies in response to possible outcomes, which in turn are created those outcomes due to the actions and strategies selected by those agents.

Those individuals, as agents, in turn create complex entities, and their interactions create and sustain complex entities at a further layer of complexity. Which culminates in a further layer of complexity, that is, the complex entities created, which, when interact with each other, create further complex phenomena. Such cumulatively complex phenomena are what I like to call complexity in international law.

Following Arthur’s view of the economy “Complexity economics thus sees the economy as in motion, perpetually “computing” itself–Perpetually constructing itself anew. Where equilibrium economics emphasizes order, determinacy, deduction, and stasis, complexity economics emphasizes contingency, indeterminacy, sense–making, and opennes to change.” In the same way, international law can be seen as something that is contingent, indeterminate that is ultimately open to change.

Principles of international law have emerged through the history, and some elements of international law have evolved. But such elements of international law do not emerge in a vacuum, they take place due to the interaction of the agents at the different levels of complexity.

For example, customary international law is something covered under Article 38 of the ICJ Statute. How do they appear? They do it because, one, they «emerge», the agents interact and cause that a given international norm starts to be used and implemented in the belief that it is legal and obligatory. Such an amalgamation of beliefs causes the customary international law to emerge, but not only that, such customary law could be refuted.

A different way to see international law In sum, a «massive parallel system of concurrent behavior» (B. Arthur, p. 3)

International law as the economy, or should I say complexity international law as complexity economics, is a massive parallel system of concurrent behavior.