International law is increasingly framed through consensus, with petitions and declarations treated as if volume confers legal authority. Yet consensus has never been a legal standard. Courts adjudicate through treaties, customary practice with opinio juris, and judicial procedures, not by counting opinions. Elevating consensus to a quasi-legal threshold blurs advocacy and adjudication, pressures courts to appear responsive rather than rigorous, and frames dissent as illegitimacy. When non-state actors displace state authority in declaring law, the foundational mechanisms of international law erode. Legal credibility depends on resisting the conflation of popularity with validity and maintaining the discipline that separates law from lobbying.