Introduction

Abstract

What should we make of those legal “grey areas” where, to paraphrase Hedley Bull, there is often no clear differentiation between what is lawful and what is not (Bull, 2002, p. 132)? How can we be so certain that law and democratic process cannot be subverted by the weight of numbers to sanction the extermination of an entire social group (Arendt, 1958, p. 299)? In the networked “information age” (Castells, 2009), is there any greater surety that the truth about the nature of international or global order will be known, let alone told? When American whistle- blower Edward Snowden revealed to the world details of the US National Security Agency’s systematic “bulk” surveillance of global telecommunications, US allies and rivals alike reacted with feigned outrage. Some argue that the age of political impunity is over (Farrell and Finemore, 2013). But cause célèbre leaks of official records, detailing routine governmental violations of agreed principles and protocols governing interstate relations, are a sharp reminder that trust in the global system remains limited and deception is still the norm.