It is the nature of all law books, and edited books in particular where authors are constrained in the space available to them, that oftentimes readers, if they could, would love to put a question, seek a clarification, or even contest one or more propositions in what they read.

My role here is to be a “Consul of the Readers” and to put such questions to some of the contributors to this excellent volume. The book is interesting and timely: finding side by side an array of different theory approaches to international law. The authors did not have the benefit of seeing the whole when writing their specific contributions – and maybe only few readers will take the time to read the book cover to cover. My questions to the various authors are, however, informed not only by the specific contributions but by the perspective of seeing the individual trees and the forest as a whole.