Part I Histories, Ch.5 The Critique of Classical Thought during the Interwar Period: Vattel and Van Vollenhoven

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tourme-Jouannet Emmanuelle
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
International Law ◽  
Interwar Period ◽  
Classical Model ◽  
Legal Thought ◽  
Classical Conception ◽  
Small Work ◽  
International Thought

This chapter connects the larger theme of the link between contemporary law and classical international thought to the ideas posited by two jurists—Cornelis Van Vollenhoven and Emer de Vattel. In 1919, Van Vollenhoven published a small work in which he issued a fierce critique of classical (legal) thought, which, according to him, was embodied by the eighteenth-century jurist, Emer de Vattel. The classical conception of international law was never expounded more clearly than in Vattel’s 1758 work, Le droit des gens, ou principes de la loi naturelle, appliqués à la conduit et aux affaires des Nations et des Souverains. Hence, by studying Vattel’s and Van Vollenhoven’s doctrines, of which the latter offers a distorted reflection of the former, it is possible to contribute to elucidating the concerns, weaknesses, and current incarnations of that classical model.

scholarly journals A Conceptual History of Recognition in British International Legal Thought

2017 ◽  
Vol 87 (1) ◽  
pp. 18-97 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Clark
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Interwar Period ◽  
Basic Concept ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
Conceptual History ◽  
Colonial Era ◽  
Legal Thought ◽  
History Of ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
Legal Concepts

Abstract This article examines the development of the concept of recognition in the writings of British jurists. It first outlines methodologies of conceptual history as applied to international legal concepts, before examining four strands of development of the concept of recognition from the mid-nineteenth to mid-twentieth centuries. It shows how the concept of recognition moved from examining intra-European diplomatic disagreements, to a focus on Christianity, civilisation and progress that barred non-European communities, to a late colonial-era emphasis on technicalities of government and territory, and eventually a state-centric account that normalised inferiority into difference, before emerging in the interwar period as a ‘basic concept’ of international law: intensely debated and closely tied to a range of political projects. The article concludes with reflections on why British thinking turns away from recognition in the 1950s, as the decolonising world turns to a new international law and self-determination.

International Legal Thought

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Kleinlein
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
Critical Potential ◽  
Self Reflection ◽  
Legal Thought ◽  
History Of ◽  
Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries

This contribution reflects on the role of tradition-building in international law, the implications of the recent ‘turn to history’ and the ‘presentisms’ discernible in the history of international legal thought. It first analyses how international legal thought created its own tradition in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. These projects of establishing a tradition implied a considerable amount of what historians would reject as ‘presentism’. Remarkably, critical scholars of our day and age who unsettled celebratory histories of international law and unveiled ‘colonial origins’ of international law were also criticized for committing the ‘sin of anachronism’. This contribution therefore examines the basis of this critique and defends ‘presentism’ in international legal thought. However, the ‘paradox of instrumentalism’ remains: The ‘better’ historical analysis becomes, the more it loses its critical potential for current international law. At best, the turn to history activates a potential of disciplinary self-reflection.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Will Smiley
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
International Law ◽  
Political Identity ◽  
Economic Value ◽  
Prisoners Of War ◽  
Ottoman History ◽  
New System

This chapter frames the arguments of the book, defines terms, and outlines the story that will follow. In the eighteenth century, the Ottoman state and its Russian rival, through conflict and diplomacy, worked out a new system of regional international law. Ransom was abolished; soldiers became prisoners of war; some slaves gained new paths to release, while others were left entirely unprotected. These rules delineated sovereignty, redefined individuals’ relationships to states, and prioritized political identity over economic value. In the process, the Ottomans marked out a parallel, non-Western path toward elements of modern international law. This story has important implications, the Introduction argues, for our understanding of Ottoman history and the histories of both international law and slavery and abolition.

Cardinal Richelieu between Vattel and Machiavelli

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony Carty
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
International Law ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
Historical Research ◽  
Practical Implementation ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
God's Will ◽  
Legal Thought ◽  
Rule Of Reason

The view that no form of international law existed in seventeenth-century France, and that this time was a part of ‘prehistory’, and thus irrelevant for international legal thought today is challenged. In addition, the traditional claim of Richelieu to be an admirer of Machiavelli and his Ragion di Stato doctrine to the detriment of the aim of concluding treaties and keeping them (as sacred), is refuted by careful historical research. In Richelieu’s thinking, there is a role for law to play but it is law as justice, law in the classical natural law tradition. Those who rule are subject to the rule of law as justice, the rule of God, or the rule of reason. In Richelieu’s world, kings and ministers are rational instruments of the practical implementation of God’s will on earth.

The Historical Development of the Application of Humanitarian Law in Non-International Armed Conflicts to 1949

1998 ◽  
Vol 47 (2) ◽  
pp. 337-361 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lindsay Moir
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
International Law ◽  
Historical Development ◽  
Armed Conflicts ◽  
Humanitarian Law ◽  
Similar Magnitude ◽  
International Conflicts ◽  
International Regulation ◽  
Internal Armed Conflicts

That humanitarian rules were applicable in armed conflicts was accepted long before the nineteenth century, but the fact that non-international armed conflicts were regarded as beyond the ambit of international regulation meant that the application of such norms to internal armed conflicts was certainly not a matter of course. Towards the end of the eighteenth century there had been a move towards the application of the laws of warfare to non-international armed conflicts as well as international conflicts, but this was based on the character of the conflicts and the fact that both were often of a similar magnitude, rather than any humanitarian concern to treat the victims of both equally. Not until the nineteenth century did the application of the laws of war to non-international armed conflicts become a widespread issue in international law.

scholarly journals The (Immediate) Post-World War II Period

2020 ◽  
pp. 168-189
Author(s):  
Antonello Tancredi
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
International Law ◽  
Interwar Period ◽  
World War ◽  
Post World War Ii ◽  
Theoretical Approaches ◽  
The Social ◽  
International Legal Order ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Domestic Law

This chapter addresses the development, after World War II, of two different currents of thought inherited by the Italian international law doctrine from the interwar period: dogmatism and structuralism. The analysis of some fundamental writings concerning topics such as the foundation and the social structure of the international legal order tries to offer a reading lens on some of the most important scientific trends (especially ‘realism’ and ‘neo-normativism’) of the post-World War II period and on the scholars that animated such approaches. Thanks to the identification of some structuring ideas, it will then be possible to briefly examine other issues concerning, for instance, the relationship between international and domestic law after the 1948 Republican Constitution, sovereignty, etc. The evolution of the methodology of international law will have a relevant part in the analysis of theoretical approaches developed by Italian scholars in this period.

The Use of Vattel in the American Law of Nations

2012 ◽  
Vol 106 (3) ◽  
pp. 547-571 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian Richardson
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
International Law ◽  
International Peace ◽  
Founding Fathers ◽  
Law Of Nations ◽  
American Law ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Law ◽  
History Of International Law

Although careful scholarly treatment of the history of international law is now thriving, within U.S. courts that history now begins with one eighteenth-century treatise published in Neuchâtel, Switzerland, in 1758 and published in translation for modern readers under the aegis of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in 1916. This treatise is Emer de Vattel’s Droit des gens ou principes de la loi naturelle, appliqués à la conduite et aux affaires des nations et des souverains. My aim in this article is to appraise the elevation of Vattel to vaunted originalist heights in U.S. law. The claim that Vattel’s theory of the law of nations completely represents how the Founding Fathers (Founders) understood the law of nations should be rejected as a matter of history.

6 Self-destruction

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
d'Aspremont Jean
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
The Self ◽  
Customary International Law ◽  
Legal Thought ◽  
Modern Thinking

This chapter claims that international legal thought and practice are replete with self-destructive claims about customary international law. It discusses the discursive performance that mirrors a very common feature of modern thinking and commonly nurtured rejuvenation through self-defeat, highlighting international legal thought and practice that contain plenty of manifestations of discursive self destruction. It also mentions the discursive performance found in the discourse on customary international law. The chapter reviews the multiple materializations of the self-destructive moves in the discourse on customary international law. It shows that a discursive performance constitutes a mode of administering the doctrine of customary international law and that the repeated findings of malfunctioning of customary international law carry elaborate and fine representations.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document