The Dworkinian reading of International Law as a dual principle system-based: a new theory of Public Trust?

In his posthumous essay, A New Philosophy for International Law, Ronald Dworkin for the very first time gazed upon the raison d’être of International Law and its idealistic dimension. In doing so, he revealed a novel approach, from a moral standpoint, opposing the positivist reading based on a consensus-based approach as the ultimate basis of International Law. To this purpose, Dowrkin proposed a new reading, namely: the salience and mitigation principles. These two principles, in his view, which should have been read as a unicum, offer a more persuasive basis for justifying the foundation of International Law since the theory, this time, is defined on and for a moral purpose. This paper intends to investigate to what extent the Interpretivist reading of International Law might pave the way for a new era of trust involving supranational institutions.