A field day with Fritz: introduction to the Symposium

The Status of Law begins with the suspicion ‘that “law” might have become the problem rather than the solution, and this problem requires further analysis’. Given that law is a social construct, Kratochwil invites us to turn to the sites where this construction takes place. To bring the many constitutions and contestations of law to the fore, he conjures theoretical sparring partners to engage in nine meditations. The genius of this Symposium consists of inviting nine colleagues, each engaging with a different meditation, and inviting a tenth colleague to add this introduction as a way to engage the engagement. By doing practice on practice the Symposium does full justice Kratochwil's move towards looking at the practice ‘in the middle of things’. The resulting field day with Fritz is a piece of intellectual mastery compiled by ‘spirited members of the republic of letters’ that carries the reader along on a journey that reveals and addresses Kratochwil's suspicions about the problem with law. In the end, we know more through sharing the problem and partaking in the joy of addressing it.