With US president-elect Joe Biden pledging to restore the ‘rules-based order’, international lawyers have extolled the triumph of a peaceful new world over its war-torn forerunner. In the latest issue of New Left Review, Tor Krever scrutinises this narrative through the work of two recent propagators. His article explores the relationship between international law and imperialism, looking back over the broad arc of international legal history, from the world of Hugo Grotius, through interwar efforts to outlaw war, to the present day of NATO bombs and US sanctions. Lamenting the emergence of yet more consoling homilies for liberal imperialism, he argues for imperialism as the structuring logic of international law. The full article can be found at: https://newleftreview.org/issues/ii126/articles/tor-krever-into-the-bramble-patch.