there’s a line in Shakespeare’s Coriolanus (which isn’t worth looking up for present purposes), “His nature is too noble for the world.” Some people who regard themselves as “realists” seem to believe that the projects of international law and human rights are too noble-or too vapidly “idealistic”-for today’s international world. Yet the world has more international law, as well as far more talk of human rights, than it did a century ago. What role can international law and human rights talk play in today’s world-and what are the things that limit their force?