 Legal philosophers writing about international law have often proceeded on the basis that both treaty and custom ultimately depend on state consent. Ronald Dworkin, for example, believed that the idea that a state is subject to international law only insofar as it has consented to be bound by it reflects what “seems to be now generally accepted by practitioners and scholars of international law” (Dworkin 2013: 5). The consent-based account of international law does indeed enjoy wide support among international lawyers too. In one 1996 case, the International Court of Justice described consent, alongside sovereignty, as “the very basis of international law” (ICJ 1996: para. 21).