ARTICLES: Ellis on Soft Law and Ho on Law and Virtue

The following have appeared on SSRN:

Jane Ellis, 'Shades of Grey: Soft Law and the Validity of Public International Law' (2012) 25(2) Leiden Journal of International Law

Soft law is often seen as a way to overcome certain problems of legitimacy in international law, notably the weaknesses of a voluntaristic conception of international law’s validity. Other perceived benefits of soft law include flexibility, speed of adoption and modification, and even effectiveness. Yet soft law is seen by others as a threat to law, because it effaces the border between law and politics. This paper explores different approaches to the boundary between law and not-law which seek both to maintain this boundary and to reconceptualise it in a way that better anchors the validity of international legal rules. 

HL Ho, 'Of Law, Virtue and Justice - An Introduction' 

This is the introductory chapter of the book, Amalia Amaya and Ho Hock Lai (eds.), Law, Virtue and Justice (Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2012).