‘This Modern Grotius’

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. H. Alexandrowicz
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
International Order ◽  
Historical Study ◽  
Global History ◽  
Imperial Expansion ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Of International Law ◽  
Global Affairs ◽  
European Thought

This introductory chapter discusses the life and work of Polish–British scholar and lawyer, Charles Henry Alexandrowicz (1902–75). Alexandrowicz pioneered the historical study of international law in its extra-European contexts, a vein of research that is fundamental to the history of international law and to global history more generally. Unlike contemporary scholars who assume that international law was an exclusively European phenomenon, or those who find only Eurocentrism in various forms in the history of European thought on international and global affairs, Alexandrowicz recognized international law’s complicity with European imperial expansion and sought to find in history resources for a more egalitarian and less Eurocentric international order.

Historiographies of International Law from a Chinese Perspective

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Adele Carrai
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
World Order ◽  
Global History ◽  
Global Power ◽  
Chinese Perspective ◽  
The Future ◽  
History Of ◽  
Chinese Scholars ◽  
History Of International Law ◽  
Selection Of

One objective of the emerging global history of international law is to broaden its scope in an attempt to overcome Eurocentrism. In this context, China, not only as an emerging global power that can influence the creation of the normative principles grounding the future world order, but also with its history of international law, offers a counter-teleology to the classic progress narrative of international law understood as a science. This article presents a critical summary and analysis of the approaches of a selection of Chinese scholars to the history of international law. The current debates seem to be closely linked to a new conception of modernity that does not correspond with the Western conception. The Chinese perspective, in this sense, can help broaden the history of international law, especially when that history claims to be global.

The Law of Nations in Global History

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. H. Alexandrowicz
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Global History ◽  
Law Of Nations ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Of Law ◽  
History Of International Law ◽  
Regional Histories ◽  
International Rule

In recent years there has been a growing awareness of the need to write a global history of law of nations that disengages from parochial national and regional histories. It is hoped that these developments will bring centre-stage the work of Charles Henry Alexandrowicz (1902–75), a scholar who was among the first to conceptualize the history of international law as that of intersecting histories of different regions of the world. Alexandrowicz was aware that, while the idea of writing a global history of law of nations is liberating, there is no guarantee that it will not become the handmaiden of contemporary and future imperial projects. What were needed were critical global histories that provincialize established Eurocentric historiographies and read them alongside other regional histories. This book aims to make Alexandrowicz’s writings more widely available and read. The Introduction to this book sums up the context, issues, problems, and questions that engaged Alexandrowicz, as well as some of his central theses. His writings are a gold mine waiting to be explored. Alexandrowicz contributed to the effort of promoting the idea of international rule of law by rejecting a Eurocentric history and theory of international law.

Recent research in the history of international law

2016 ◽  
Vol 84 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 313-334
Author(s):  
Frederik Dhondt
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
International Law ◽  
Historical Research ◽  
Global History ◽  
Intercultural Awareness ◽  
The Past ◽  
History Of ◽  
Legal Thinking ◽  
History Of International Law ◽  
Interdisciplinary Scholarship

This review article treats the booming scholarship on the history of international law over the past decade. Works with a broader view (1), including the recent big-book syntheses and collective works, are contrasted with monographs (2), from studies of treaties and doctrine, over diplomatic practice to scholarship by historians and, finally, interdisciplinary scholarship. This texts provides a personal panorama of the wide array of scholarly perspectives on a common object: rules recognised in the community or society of states. New insights from history and social sciences, especially the turn to global history, open fresh prospects for ‘traditional’ legal historical research. Studying the encounter between ‘European’ international law and other continents rises our indispensable intercultural awareness. Yet, it should also serve to better understand the specificity of European legal thinking or diplomatic practice, and does not render research on the latter obsolete or redundant.


Pirate Passages in Global History

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lauren Benton
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
European Perspective ◽  
Global History ◽  
New Approaches ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
History Of ◽  
Global Patterns ◽  
History Of International Law

This Afterword describes some limitations of conceptual histories of piracy and critiques the field’s enduring emphasis on pirates as hostes humani generis, enemies of all mankind. The volume’s chapters show a wide range of representations of pirates and move beyond the idea of a single or uniquely European perspective on piracy that can be compared or contrasted with other approaches. The Afterword summarizes key insights from the chapters and sketches several promising trajectories in research on piracy, including studies of global patterns of maritime violence, analyses of the spatial and political contexts of piracy, and new approaches to piracy in the history of international law.

Anarchy over Law? Towards a Genealogy of Modern War Justifications (1789–1918)

2021 ◽  
pp. 147-166
Author(s):  
Hendrik Simon
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
International Relations ◽  
International Law ◽  
International Order ◽  
Mirror Image ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Of International Law ◽  
Modern War

Hendrik Simon follows up on Anuschka Tischer’s analysis of European justifications of war. He turns to transformation of this discourse’s vocabulary in the context of the nineteenth century: to this day, most textbooks on the history of international law and international relations contain the proposition that European states held a sovereign right to go to war (liberum ius ad bellum) in the nineteenth-century international order. The latter is still understood as an anarchic mirror image of the modern international order, which (supposedly) emerged in the first half of the twentieth century. This assumption is challenged in this chapter: by outlining a genealogy of modern war justifications, starting with the French Revolutionary Wars, Hendrik Simon seeks to deconstruct liberum ius ad bellum as a myth which emanated from the realist and liberal narratives of the emergence of the modern international order. The fundamental argument is that the ‘long’ nineteenth century is not the anarchic converse of the modern discourse on war and international order—but its epoch of birth.

The Justification of War and International Order: From Past to Present

2021 ◽  
pp. 3-26
Author(s):  
Hendrik Simon ◽  
Lothar Brock
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Use Of Force ◽  
International Order ◽  
Double Function ◽  
History Of

The introductory chapter provides the rationale for the book. It introduces the book’s core thesis: the history of war is also a history of its justification. This history can be told as a genealogy of endeavours to facilitate the use of force and to hedge it. As such it addresses the double function of international law as enabling and restricting the use of force. The chapter elaborates the research innovations of the book: first with regard to the gap between the theory on the admissibility of war and the practice of justifying it, second with a view to reading war discourses as discourses of international order formation. Finally, the chapter offers a preview over the book’s individual parts, arguments, and contributions.

The Oxford Handbook of International Law in Asia and the Pacific

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Dispute Settlement ◽  
International Order ◽  
Asia Pacific ◽  
Asia Pacific Region ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
Colonial Theory ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Of International Law

The growing economic and political significance of Asia has exposed a tension in the modern international order. Despite expanding power and influence, Asian states have played a minimal role in creating the norms and institutions of international law; today they are the least likely to be parties to international agreements or to be represented in international organizations. That is changing. There is widespread scholarly and practitioner interest in international law at present in the Asia-Pacific region, as well as developments in the practice of states. The change has been driven by threats as well as opportunities. Transnational issues such as climate change and occasional flashpoints like the territorial disputes of the South China and the East China Seas pose challenges while economic integration and the proliferation of specialised branches of law and dispute settlement mechanisms have also encouraged greater domestic implementation of international norms across Asia. These evolutions join the long-standing interest in parts of Asia (notably South Asia) in post-colonial theory and the history of international law. This book analyses the approach to, and influence of, key states of the region, as well as whether truly ‘Asian’ trends can be identified and what this might mean for international order.

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