1/n #Coronavirus and #InternationalLaw: I think by now developments in several fields show that international litigation cannot be a substitute for negotiations.

2/n The efforts of international lawyers seeking answers through adjudication, admirable and idealist as they are, cannot be a substitute for the active participation of states in international law making.

3/n From the ICJ, to investment arbitration, to the WTO, all processes have witnessed the pitfalls of envisioning an all pervasive judicial function.

4/n This is why we must first make intelligent and sharp rules to address specific problems, before asking international lawyers to enforce such rules. Any other approach risks eroding the legitimacy of international courts in favour of the egos of international lawyers.

5/n It is certainly more difficult to seek consensus amongst disparate populations than amongst a creed of lawyers with a common education and enculturation, but the difficulty of the task does not render it avoidable.

6/n This is why, contrary to the flavour of the day, I think that we need to first come up with effective & specific rules to deal with issues like the current crisis, before asking courts and lawyers to extrapolate & apply very general rules to the specific problem at hand.

7/7 Instead of solving the problem by dying to fix liability, which is challenging under the current rules, the better approach would be to focus on coming up with real and effective cooperative mechanisms and laws to solve genuinely global problems like pandemics. End.