Mark Drumbl Publishes New Book “The Character of International Law” The book serves as a Festschrift—a collection of writings published in honor of a scholar—for Professor Rob Cryer.

By Law Communications
November 18, 2025

Mark Drumbl, Class of 1975 Professor of Law and Director of the Transnational Law Institute at Washington and Lee University School of Law, has published a new book, a co-edited collection of essays exploring themes of character and the modern development of international law.

The book, titled “The Character of International Law” and published by Bloomsbury Press, serves as a Festschrift—a collection of writings published in honor of a scholar—for Professor Rob Cryer, a deceased colleague and dear friend of Professor Drumbl and his coeditors.

“Rob was a foundational voice in modern international criminal law,” said Drumbl. “The book is a Festschrift of love and admiration for a character that is dearly missed. Second, the book also continues to voice the many conversations that Rob started, doubling as a critical examination of the character of international law.”

The book includes 17 chapters, each of which reflects on the life of international law. Topics include criminal law, the law of war, music and harm, gender-based violence, nuclear weapons and artificial intelligence, law after war, the crime of aggression, drones and targets, the domestication of international law, and the role of law in inter-state relations.

“The book journeys to many places, including Japan, Bosnia and Ukraine, while reflecting on the role of teaching and mentorship in the pulse of international law,” said Drumbl.

In addition to co-authoring the introduction to this book, Professor Drumbl (together with Professor Solange Mouthaan of the University of Warwick (UK)), contributed a chapter titled “The Tokyo International Military Tribunal: Another Sequel to a Prequel.” This chapter operates as a stage-play that imagines Professor Cryer as an expert witness in an imagined trial of American General Leslie Groves for the dropping of the atomic bomb on Nagasaki, Japan, in August 1945, three days after the bombing of Hiroshima.

This stage-play considers the credible defenses the United States might have raised to any such charges, including military necessity, and carries readers throughout Tokyo, Nagoya, Nagasaki, and Okinawa by virtue of Professor Drumbl’s photographs taken over the course of several research trips to museums and memorial sites. Imagined correspondence between descendants of the trial protagonists rounds out this chapter.

By experimenting with alternate ways to tell the stories of international law rather than densely footnoted and passive-voiced law-review articles, Professor Drumbl says he hopes to “develop new and compelling ways of thinking about law, life, pain, justice, and redemption.”

A major launch event for “The Character of International Law” is planned on April 23, 2026, at the London School of Economics.

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