Norm Contestation for Strategic Effect: Legal Narratives as Information Advantage

Aurel Sari

doi:10.17104/0044-2348-2023-1-119

Contents
- Chapter Expand | CollapseAuthorsPage
- Titelei/Inhaltsverzeichnis
- 1–10 Comment 1–10
  - Chilean Insights for Progressive Constitutionalism Armin von Bogdandy Armin von Bogdandy
- 11–176 Abhandlungen 11–176
  - 11–38 Norm Contestation in the Law Against War: Towards an Interdisciplinary Analytical Framework Max Lesch, Christian Marxsen Max Lesch, Christian Marxsen 11–38
  - 39–64 Contesting Use of Force Norms Through Technological Practices Ingvild Bode Ingvild Bode 39–64
  - 65–90 Mitigating International Norms Through Contestation: Peaceful Purposes in Space Law and the Security Dilemma Giulia Persoz Giulia Persoz 65–90
  - 91–118 Of Norms and Ambiguity: The Contested Authority of UN Security Council and African Union in the Use of Force in Africa John-Mark Iyi John-Mark Iyi 91–118
  - 119–154 Norm Contestation for Strategic Effect: Legal Narratives as Information Advantage Aurel Sari Aurel Sari 119–154
  - 155–176 Prohibition of Threats of Force: A Silently Contested Norm? Agata Kleczkowska Agata Kleczkowska 155–176
- 177–198 Buchbesprechungen 177–198
  - 177–185 Riepl, Michael: Russian Contributions to International Humanitarian Law. A Contrastive Analysis of Russia’s Historical Role and Its Current Practice Jonas Wieschollek Jonas Wieschollek 177–185
  - 186–192 Neumeier, Christian: Kompetenzen. Zur Entstehung des deutschen öffent- lichen Rechts Konstantin Klopp Konstantin Klopp 186–192
  - 193–198 Senti, Richard: Geschichte der internationalen Handels- und Investitions- abkommen. Jedes Abkommen schreibt seine eigene Geschichte Ludwig Gramlich Ludwig Gramlich 193–198
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Zeitschrift für ausländisches öffentliches Recht und Völkerrecht / Heidelberg Journal of International Law , page 119 - 154

Norm Contestation for Strategic Effect: Legal Narratives as Information Advantage

Autoren

Aurel Sari

DOI
- doi.org/10.17104/0044-2348-2023-1-119
- ISSN: 0044-2348
- ISSN online: 2942-3562
Zusammenfassung

Telling stories is intrinsic to legal practice. Clients, lawyers, and courts constantly tell stories about the facts and the law to make sense of the world around them. Legal narration is thus a familiar feature at the domestic as well as at the international level. In formal venues, legal storytelling is subject to arange of procedural and substantive requirements. For example, not everyone enjoys standing before a particular court. By contrast, in informal venues, few if any such conditions apply. Press releases, official statements and social media posts provide legal actors with considerable latitude and communicative freedom to give their version of events. Much of this has emancipatory potential, as it can lend a voice to those who lack representation in more formal circumstances. However, it also enables actors to engage in legal discourse, and to spin their stories, without the various checks and balances that apply in formal settings. Legal narratives are also a source of conflict, polemics and even misinformation. The purpose of this article is to take a closer look at the role that legal narratives play in the contestation of, and contestation through, international norms. The article argues that legal narratives display certain distinct features that set them apart from other types of storytelling. Specifically, they are marked by normative constraints imposed by the formal nature of legal reasoning and interpretation and by the logic of rhetoric and the policy choices they are meant to serve. These two features – the formalism of the law and the demands of rhetoric and instrumentalism – pull legal narratives in different directions. Outside formal processes and venues, this tension becomes acute. In the absence of epistemic scrutiny by experts and authorities, legal narratives may stray far from the formalism of the law in pursuit of competing goals. Where these goals gain the upper hand, attaining an information advantage may become their primary purpose, a point the article illustrates with reference to the justifications Russia offered for its invasion of Ukraine in 2022. In such circumstances, legal narratives may invoke the language and authority of the law not just unpersuasively, but falsely.
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