The purpose of the third edition of An Introduction to Contemporary International
Law: A Policy-Oriented Perspective is to propose to readers an answer to the question:
What is international law? The answer given follows in the tradition of the New
Haven School, whose policy-science approach to international law has its origins in the
works of Professors Myres S. McDougal and Harold D. Lasswell of Yale Law School.
Beginning in the mid-twentieth century, Professors McDougal and Lasswell and their
collaborators sought to understand and to describe the forces rapidly reshaping the
global landscape after the end of World War II. According to them, international law is
not static but is a process by which members of the world community attempt to clarify
and secure their common interests through authoritative decisions and controlling practices.
For students wishing to understand international law, I submit that there is no better
place to start than with the New Haven School’s systematic approach to world events
and its accompanying set of intellectual tools for identifying and describing the factors
that underlie international legal order.