This contribution aims at advancing a public law approach to international law by engaging with Carl Schmitt’s Concept of the Political. First, it hereby explains this approach in light of the current nationalist backlash against international law and governance. Second, Schmitt’s text helps reflecting the methodology of that approach, as of public law theory in general. Third, building blocks of international public law such as the analytical concept of public authority as well as the normative concepts of inclusive publicness and common good will be framed against Schmitt’s antagonistic concept of the political.