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31 N.Y.U. J. Int'l L. & Pol. 919 (1998-1999)
Fragmentation or Unification: Some Concluding Remarks

handle is hein.journals/nyuilp31 and id is 927 raw text is: FRAGMENTATION OR UNIFICATION: SOME CONCLUDING REMARKS GEORGES ABI-SAAB* At the end of these two days of intensive debates, much of what I thought I could say has already been said-and said well: by Jonathan Charney yesterday, by Paul Szasz on an im- portant point, and just now in the rich presentation by Michael Reisman. But I am a simple man, and I feel lost amidst all these contextual considerations. This is why I think we should come back to basics, perhaps at a very simple level, which may give us equally simple ideas about how to bring all these strands together; but first I would like to make a prelimi- nary methodological remark. In much of our lengthy debates, we have been speaking at cross-purposes, as a result of what social scientists call the level of analysis problem. We were not always looking at the same thing, at the same aspect, or from the same angle or dis- tance. Part of the responsibility for this goes to David Ken- nedy's polarized representation of positions, opposing one to the other: Europeans v. Americans, unity v. diversity, law-as- rules v. law-as-process, and so forth. Indeed, most classical as well as so-called critical theories are based on such sharp op- positions. In reality, however, the difference between these categories is much less clear-cut than in these dichotomous representations. In most cases, they are different faces of the same coin or, rather, images of different moments, stages, or movements along the same continuum. This is also true of the theme of unity and diversity that is the subject of our Confer- ence. I. THREE TnEoRETIcAL PROPOSrTIONS My ideas in this respect can be summarized in three seem- ingly paradoxical propositions-but only seemingly, as I shall * Professor of International Law, Graduate Institute of International Studies, Geneva; Rennert Distinguished Professor, Global Law School Pro- gram, NYU School of Law. SometimeJudge on the Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and for Rwanda. 919 Imaged with the Permission of N.Y.U. Journal of International Law and Politics

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