International law has more often than not been conceptualized in a Kelsian manner, meaning that the legal apparatus should, in fact, be apolitical in content, and that its ontological reflexes should be based on purely normative thought, resulting in a defication of the law, as a supreme guarantor of order.

This approach is invalidated by the social realities if politics and all forms of social interaction. The law must be viewed as infused with content by its creators, i.e. states, international organizations, international courts, and so on. This in turn brings into focus questions of national interest and power politics.