Abstract

While it is not international law, soft law has an influence on the creation and application of the latter and it is, therefore, relevant to international legal analysis. Moving from this premise, the present paper analyses the role and relevance of soft law in connection with some aspects of the recent development of the international society and international legal order: the emergence of new actors, the rise of problems requiring rapid, experimental, and highly technical solutions, and the need for a shift away from traditional consensualism in response to global public goods challenges. Its main argument is that, rather than sidelining international law in the regulation of international matters, soft law has contributed to its resilience in front of some main challenges of the contemporary era.