17 - Experimental Jurisprudence in International Law

Summary

The present chapter presents an overview of the recent applications of experimental methods to jurisprudential issues in international law as well as potential future developments of the field. We discuss how experimental methods can helpfully contribute to the understanding of the different moments of international law: the making of new rules, the interpretation of these rules, and, finally, their application in practice. We also present three main topics that constitute the studies of rule application in practice, namely, the mechanisms behind human judgment, policymaking, and, finally, the decision taking itself. We identify some future potential lines of development based on the example of the current disagreements over the definition of an international crime of “ecocide” and discuss some potential limitations of the experimental approach.