The influence of national legal cultures on the theory and practice of public international law: a comparative case study of France and the United States.

Public international law is traditionally conceived as a universal body of norms binding upon states and certain other entities. Despite this universality, often one can observe that international law practitioners from one country disagree with their peers from another country. Although many explanations have been offered for this phenomenon, one potential factor has received less attention: national legal culture. This research proposal departs from the premise that national legal culture shapes the manner in which law practitioners approach international law. In order to test this hypothesis, a model will be developed that will allow for an evaluation of the link between national legal culture and international legal practitioners. In a next step, the model will be applied via a comparative case study of French and American international legal practitioners. In terms of methodology, the research proposal aims to combine insights from international law, comparative legal studies and the sociology of law. The ambition of the research project is to offer an alternative understanding of international law and to contribute to "comparative international law", a fascinating field of scholarship that has received less attention in the past but that is currently undergoing a revival.