The Faustian Pact in International Law

Examines the significance of the Faustian pact in international criminal law

• The work is a fresh ‘take’ not only on critical legal theory or law-and-literature but, rather, a powerful and cutting-edge fusion of the two: a critico-cultural legal study
• The book’s readings of drama, prose fiction and lyric, are always contextualised in terms of law, broadly construed - in terms of doctrine, policy and jurisprudence – that demonstrate not only a deep understanding of, but a bold deconstruction of the claims to a ‘higher good’ of, for example, the international criminal courts, the law of the sea, human rights law, humanitarian law, and contemporary sovereignty
• Further, these readings are tied together by the ‘golden thread’ of critical theory running throughout and turning, in particular, on the work of Agamben, Schmitt, and Kantorowicz, all mobilised to navigate and negotiate the relationship between law and the aesthetic

The book provides an original and captivating perspective on international law and Giorgio Agamben’s work. The manuscript is profoundly aesthetic-textual in its approach, as exemplified in its deft and insightful close readings of drama (Goethe’s Faust), prose fiction (Melville’s Bartleby and Benito Cereno) and lyric, be it devotional (Laudes Regiae, Handel, ‘The Lord is a Man of War’) or otherwise (Edwin Starr’s ‘War’, Boy George’s ‘War Song’). Attentive to language, plot, theme and characterisation, these readings not only read the texts in question, but they also read them anew, yielding fresh, innovative, and unique cultural legal interpretations.