Trust, Negotiation, and the Renewal of International Law: Towards a Relational Normativity

Abstract The erosion of international law is not unique in today’s world. Its crisis of legitimacy is characterised by polarisation in world affairs, declining trust among actors on the international plane and competing claims to authority. Existing perspectives on international law and international relations explain this erosion only partially since they overlook the relational processes through which international law acquires meaning and binding force. This article introduces the Theory on the Relational Normativity of International Law (TORNIL), which reconceptualises the sources of international law’s normativity as arising from the interaction of formal rules, moral values, and relationships— between actors concerned with and affected by its application and development—characterised along a continuum of trust and distrust. By operationalising this framework through the practices of principled negotiation, the article advances a relational understanding of international law’s normativity and offers a pathway for rebuilding legitimacy and trust in global governance.