Structures of Governance: “Fixing” International Law with Lessons from Constitutional and Corporate Governance
To mark the tercentenary of Harvard University in 1936, Professor John M. Maguire described the law as “the system of wise restraints that make men free,” a definition that is still used to confer the law degree on the university’s graduates and recently made more famous by Chief Justice John Roberts in his confirmation hearing.
The law protects liberty, most basically, by addressing the structural problem of organizational governance: How to give decision makers enough discretion to do their jobs but to circumscribe such discretion sufficiently with consistent neutral principles so that their decisions are, and perceived to be, the product not of arbitrary whim or unfettered power but of legitimate authority.
