Historian Paul Johnson opined that the great undertaking of the last millennium was the establishment of the rule of law within nation states, and that the project for this new millennium is to build the rule of law on the international or global level. The first project remains a work in progress; the second has only just begun. Rather than hazard to prognosticate – on such time scales anything is possible, more than once – this chapter will offer an overview of the current state of the rule of law on the international level, organized in terms of the three themes set out in the preceding chapter. These offerings are tentative and brief, reflecting what is an uncertain and early state of affairs; for nigh every positive sign there is a concomitant reason for doubt.

Let us begin generally with the reasons for optimism. International lawyers (jurists, scholars, practitioners) are fond of reiterating that: “around the world today the vast majority of governments abide by the dictates of international law an overwhelming majority of the time.” Furthermore, an already impressive and ever-expanding range of subject matters are governed by international law, especially when increasingly common regional arrangements – like the European Union and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) – are included in the estimation.