Abstract: International Legal Structures develops an internal analysis of international legal doctrine and argument. A now classic early study of the "semiotics" of legal argument, the book analyzes instances of legal argument to identify the underlying patterns of association, repetition and reference which animate the ways that specific arguments are experienced. The book breaks from the tradition of situating international law in relationship to political forces to examine the rhetorical patterns within the field, including the way in which the discipline rhetorically manages its relationship to what it sees as a political context. The objective is to develop a kind of "grammar" of international legal argument.