The Future of World Order

Abstract

Perhaps more profoundly than any international lawyer of our time, Wolfgang Friedmann combined a deep humanistic commitment to an improved system of world order with a lively awareness that proposals for global reform must first pass tests of political feasibility to warrant serious attention.* It is a great tribute, I think, to the strength of Professor Friedmann’s vision that he could accept the harsh realities of international relations, especially given the persistence and intensification of the war system, without over the years growing either sentimental or cynical, that is, without succumbing to the easy advocacy of either instant world government or the facile endorsement of what was once called realpolitik, but which might now be more easily recognized if identified as Kissingerism or for that matter, Brzezinskiism.