ARTICLES : SPECIAL ISSUE Rebel Without a Cause? Martti Koskenniemi and the Critical Legal Project By Jason A. Beckett * A. Introduction: Fourth Time Lucky? Few books have attained the influence and impact of Martti Koskenniemi’s From Apology to Utopia (FATU); fewer still could have made anything like such an impact with a publication run and consequent distribution as small as FATU’s. Thus, as has undoubtedly been said before, and will undoubtedly be repeated subsequently, Cambridge University Press must be congratulated on their decision to publish a new edition, with a far larger print run, and wider distribution. This new edition takes the form of a reissue, with only an Epilogue added. The epilogue is designed to re-situate the text and to demonstrate its relevance to today’s international law, despite the seismic shifts in the international order since its original publication. Another, perhaps more important, aim is clarificatory. For if few books have been as influential as FATU, it is, perhaps paradoxically, also true, as Koskenniemi has noted, that few have been so comprehensively misunderstood, misportrayed, even defamed. 1 * Lecturer in Law, University of Leicester. jason.beckett@leicester.ac.uk I would like to thank Stefano Bertea, Agnes Bertrand, Jen Hendry, Jörg Kammerhofer, Akbar Rasulov, and Ronnie Yearwood for their support, critical discussions, and comments on earlier drafts of this paper. Drawn as it is, at least in part, from my PhD project, the paper also owes substantial, and obvious, intellectual debts to my supervisors Iain Scobbie and Scott Veitch; and, especially for its evolution from its PhD form, to my examiners Lindsay Farmer and Susan Marks. Perhaps most importantly of all, I must thank my dedicated, and incredibly supportive, editor, Morag Goodwin. Her encouragement, and direct input, has had a greater impact, especially in terms of clarity and structure, than I could have imagined. Finally, I would like to thank Martti Koskenniemi himself for his kind and insightful comments on a late draft of this paper. Naturally none of them bear any responsibility for the final product, nor any errors it contains. 1 MARTTI KOSKENNIEMI, FROM APOLOGY TO UTOPIA 563 (2006) .