Keep Calm and Carry on: Martti Koskenniemi and the Fragmentation of International Law

As fragmentation in international law and institutions increases unabated, the
associated theoretical debate has virtually gone silent. Koskenniemi's contributions to the fragmentation debate, primarily the 2006 International Law Commission (ILC) Study Group Report and several academic articles, played a central role in this "normalization of fragmentation." They demonstrated that fragmentation is politically inevitable and legally manageable through formal rules of interpretation.
Adopting an analogy between states and functional regimes, Koskenniemi views
fragmentation through the same lenses he applies to international law more
generally, by acknowledging and identifying its political undercurrents, while
advocating an applied ethics of formalism. Although, generally, one might "keep
calm and carry on" in the face of fragmentation, Koskenniemi nevertheless flags
one concern-fragmentation's propensity to promote anti-formalist managerialism in international affairs.