It has recently been suggested that the study of international legal life should take an ‘empirical turn’: a turn which has often focused on how patterns of authority emerge and operate in relation to international courts. In what follows it is argued that this empiricism fails to distinguish (for the purposes of sociological inquiry) authority from various other concepts such as power or consensus in the study of international law and courts. This is because this method focuses only on overt signs, such as observable action or statements of intention, and at the level of the sign these concepts are not obviously distinguishable. However, one solution to this problem, which is to collapse socially significant and distinct categories such as authority and consensus into a broad category of ‘power’, requires the adoption of an implausible and inconsistent view of agency in explanations of legal authority. By contrast, and in line with the long-standing interpretivist tradition in sociological and legal method, we claim that in order to interpret the observable signs of compliance to international legal rules and principles as indicative of authority, consensus, or power, it is necessary to interpolate an account of the reasons which give rise to the compliance we observe. This, in turn, explains why international legal doctrine, as an axiological structure, gives rise to the behaviour of its addressees, such as state officials.

中文翻译：

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解释国际法院的权力和权威

最近有人建议，对国际法律生活的研究应该采取“经验转向”：这一转向通常关注权威模式如何出现并与国际法院相关联。在下文中，有人争辩说，这种经验主义未能区分（为了社会学研究的目的）权威与各种其他概念，例如国际法和法院研究中的权力或共识。这是因为这种方法只关注明显的符号，例如可观察到的行为或意图陈述，而在符号的层面上，这些概念并没有明显的可区分性。然而，解决这个问题的一种方法是将具有社会意义的不同类别（例如权威和共识）分解为广泛的“权力”类别，要求在解释法律权威时采用一种不可信且前后矛盾的代理观点。相比之下，根据社会学和法律方法中长期存在的解释主义传统，我们声称，为了将遵守国际法律规则和原则的可观察迹象解释为权威、共识或权力的指示，有必要插值说明导致我们观察到的合规性的原因。这反过来又解释了为什么国际法学说作为一种价值论结构会引起其对象的行为，例如国家官员。我们声称，为了将可观察到的遵守国际法律规则和原则的迹象解释为权威、共识或权力的指示，有必要插入对导致我们遵守的原因的说明。这反过来又解释了为什么国际法学说作为一种价值论结构会引起其对象的行为，例如国家官员。我们声称，为了将可观察到的遵守国际法律规则和原则的迹象解释为权威、共识或权力的指示，有必要插入对导致我们遵守的原因的说明。这反过来又解释了为什么国际法学说作为一种价值论结构会引起其对象的行为，例如国家官员。