The Gift of Formalism Anne Orford* Full text available: PDF format ** Bruno Simma (ed.) : The Charter of the United Nations: A Commentary. 2nd edition. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2002. Abstract In its fidelity to the text of the UN Charter as the constitution of a world community and in its commitment to the notion of a strong international organization, the 2nd edition of The Charter of the United Nations: A Commentary is markedly different in orientation to the scholarship of those international lawyers who have argued for a purely instrumental approach to international law. In particular, those sections of the Commentary relating to the use of force reject the suggestion that international lawyers might shake off the constraints of the Charter and create a new version of the law. In this sense, the approach taken by the authors of the Commentary resonates with those texts suggesting that international law might offer a resistance to imperialism (specifically of the American variety). However, the notion that the UN Charter embodies an international legal order that is free of the desire for empire is complicated if we turn to those sections of the Commentary that support the trend towards constituting the UN as the manager of problems in the developing world. There, the Commentary produces a vision of a new international law operating through the administration of daily life and the harmonization of systems of control. The essay concludes by exploring that which escapes the formalist gift of fidelity - that which is played out beyond the certainties of the Commentary. * Faculty of Law, University of Melbourne ** The free viewer (Acrobat Reader) for PDF file is available at the Adobe Systems.
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