The accelerated rate of social and political changes that are globally occurring, and will continue to occur, will entail significant challenges for the state, as a political entity, and for its dominant position in international law. If unable to rise to them, the state might face, in the next decades or centuries, the decline of its leading and dominant position in international law, as well as the appearance of new systems of governance that might compete with it, coexist with it and even, eventually, replace it. This symposium will provide a forum of discussion on the question of how the accelerated rate of social changes, the dynamics of an irrevocable globalization, international crisis (in a broad sense) and the state’s behaviors and failures, are likely to contribute to the challenge of the legal and political theories grounding the state’s existence and to the appearance and flourish of new ones.

This symposium is cosponsored by ASIL's International Legal Theory Interest Group and the Jesús T. Piñero Center for Social Research, Universidad del Este, Puerto Rico.