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.

‘Our passion for legality’: international law and imperialism in late nineteenth-century Britain

2008 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 403-423 ◽  
Author(s):  
CASPER SYLVEST
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
International Law ◽  
South African ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Contemporary World ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Congo Free State

AbstractThis article deploys a historical analysis of the relationship between law and imperialism to highlight questions about the character and role of international law in global politics. The involvement of two British international lawyers in practices of imperialism in Africa during the late nineteenth century is critically examined: the role of Travers Twiss (1809–1897) in the creation of the Congo Free State and John Westlake’s (1828–1913) support for the South African War. The analysis demonstrates the inescapably political character of international law and the dangers that follow from fusing a particular form of liberal moralism with notions of legal hierarchy. The historical cases raise ethico-political questions, the importance of which is only heightened by the character of contemporary world politics and the attention accorded to international law in recent years.

Toward a Global Intellectual History of “Minority”

2021 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
pp. 319-324
Author(s):  
Roy Bar Sadeh ◽  
Lotte Houwink ten Cate
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual History ◽  
Political Representation ◽  
Special Section ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
Valuable Contribution ◽  
Marginalized Communities ◽  
Minority Politics ◽  
History Of ◽  
Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries

Abstract The term minority is today applied to describe beleaguered, persecuted, and exiled people whose subordination is preserved or merely “tolerated” by majoritarian politics inherent to modern states. As this introduction indicates, however, during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries minority politics became a rubric for sociopolitical emancipation, providing a framework for intellectuals in colonized Asia and Africa to question European powers' treatment of marginalized communities. Bar Sadeh and Houwink ten Cate contend that “minority” has unique value as an instrument for historical analysis that is restricted neither solely to minority-majority relations nor to debates about (political) representation. Instead, the authors propose a global intellectual history of “minority” as a concept and experience, which is explored in the essays compiled in this special section, “Minority Questions.” By examining the diverse genealogies of the concept of minority, the essays that follow provide a valuable contribution to efforts to redress historical wrongs, even as they offer a range of explanations for the enduring legacy and power of this multifaceted concept.

Doing Things with Legal History

2018 ◽  
pp. 922-940
Author(s):  
Alfred L. Brophy
Keyword(s):  
Property Rights ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
First Century ◽  
Unequal Distribution ◽  
Alternative Vision ◽  
Early Twenty ◽  
History Of ◽  
Support Property ◽  
Late Twentieth

This chapter discusses the role of historical analysis in property law. The history of property has been used to offer support for property rights. Their long history makes the distribution of property look normal, indeed natural and something that cannot or should not be challenged. However, historically in the U.S there have been competing visions of property. From the Progressive era onward especially, the history of property has been used to show the unequal distribution of property and to offer an alternative vision that expands the rights of non-owners of property. In the late twentieth and early twenty-first century, the history of opposition to feudalism and protection of the rights of non-owners was used to protect the rights of non-owners. Thus, the history of property has been a tool of judges and legislators to support property rights and it has also been, less frequently, a tool of critique.

scholarly journals Small Business And Entrepreneurship Financing System In Uzbekistan: Historical Analysis And Approaches

2021 ◽  
Vol 03 (04) ◽  
pp. 393-401
Author(s):  
Fayzulla Tolipov ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Small Business ◽  
Banking System ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
Business Environment ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Development Programs ◽  
Financing System ◽  
Existing Problems ◽  
History Of

The article describes the specifics of the system of financing of small business and entrepreneurship in the recent history of Uzbekistan, the funds allocated for small business and entrepreneurship, the activities of commercial banks and the financial and banking system, some problems in the field. It also noted that since the early days of independence, a unique business environment has been created in the country to support the interests of entrepreneurs in the framework of development programs in this area, data on the role of financial mechanisms in the further development of small business and entrepreneurship in the country have been studied from a historical point of view. The article highlights the positive situation in the country's macro and microeconomic indicators, ie the active participation of banks in attracting local entrepreneurs and foreign investment, the existing problems in this area and the measures taken to address them. It analyzes the important factors and strategies of banks' participation in the development of business and entrepreneurship.

scholarly journals Authorial Self and Modernity as Reflected in Diaries and Memoirs. Three 19th-Century Hungarian Case Studies

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 85-97
Author(s):  
Béla Mester
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual History ◽  
Social Role ◽  
Public Intellectual ◽  
Self Reflection ◽  
Individual Character ◽  
History Of ◽  
New Type ◽  
The Moment ◽  
The One

Abstract The role of the diaries and memoirs in the process of the conscious self-reflection and their contribution to the emergence of modern individual personalities are well-known facts of the intellectual history. The present paper intends to analyze a special form of the creation of modern individual character; it is the self-creation of the writer as a conscious personality, often with a clearly formulated opinion about her/his own social role. There will be offered several examples from the 19th-century history of the Hungarian intelligentsia. This period is more or less identical with the modernization of the “cultural industry” in Hungary, dominated by the periodicals with their deadlines, fixed lengths of the articles, and professional editing houses on the one hand and the cultural nation building on the other. Concerning the possible social and cultural role of the intelligentsia, it is the moment of the birth of a new type, so-called public intellectual. I will focus on three written sources, a diary of a Calvinist student of theology, Péter (Litkei) Tóth, the memoirs of an influential public intellectual, Gusztáv Szontagh, and a belletristic printed diary of a young intellectual, János Asbóth.

Water Security and Armed Conflict

2020 ◽  
pp. 125-144
Author(s):  
Rhett B. Larson
Keyword(s):  
Water Stress ◽  
International Law ◽  
River Water ◽  
Armed Conflict ◽  
Water Security ◽  
Food Prices ◽  
History Of ◽  
Ancient Civilizations ◽  
Human Conflict

Water has not just been the locus of human cooperation, as seen in our early ancient civilizations arising along the banks of desert rivers. It has also been the geography of our conflicts. Indeed, the role of water in human conflict can be seen even in our languages. For example, the word “rival” comes from the Latin word rivalis, meaning those who share a river. Water has been a strategic target and even a weapon in war. In very rare instances, disputes over water have escalated into violence. Water stress results in instability, rising food prices, and desperation, which are often dry kindling for radicalization. This chapter discusses the history of water and violence, why water is more often a source of cooperation than conflict, and the role international law has, and may, play in continuing the pattern of water as a catalyst for peace.

Indigenous African Religions

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Baum
Keyword(s):  
Slave Trade ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
Religious History ◽  
Religious Change ◽  
African Religions ◽  
History Of Religions ◽  
History Of ◽  
New Challenges ◽  
Indigenous Religions

This chapter focuses on the history of religions created by African communities and which have relied primarily on the inspiration of prophets, mediums, and elders, rather than on sacred texts. Anthropologists, colonial administrators, and missionaries dominated the study of indigenous African religions until the 1970s and relatively few studies emphasized historical approaches. This reflects long-standing Western assumptions about Africa as a place without history or religions, as well as the paucity of written documents about African religious history. The chapter begins with E. E. Evans-Pritchard’s historical analysis of Nuer prophetism, and examines the role of the Atlantic slave trade as a catalyst for religious change, the role of indigenous religions in resistance to colonial conquest, and the ways in which they changed in response to colonial occupation. It examines forms of witchcraft, constructions of gender, and new challenges to indigenous African religions during the postcolonial era.

Part I Histories, Ch.2 Roman Law and the Intellectual History of International Law

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lesaffer Randall
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Roman Law ◽  
Late Middle Ages ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Of Law ◽  
History Of International Law ◽  
Roman Antiquity

This chapter describes the role of Roman law—whose influence has been largely underestimated in recent scholarship—in the intellectual history and development of international law. To that end, the chapter offers a general survey of the historical interactions between Roman law and international law, drawing from general insights into the intellectual history of law in Europe that have remained remarkably absent in the grand narrative of the history of international law. The focus is on the periods in which these interactions were most pronounced. Next to Roman Antiquity, these are the Late Middle Ages (eleventh to fifteenth centuries) and the Early Modern Age (sixteenth to eighteenth centuries).

History of the Historiography of Spanish Textbooks and Treatises on International Law of the 19th Century

2013 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Yolanda Gamarra Chopo
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
International Law ◽  
Late Development ◽  
Spanish History ◽  
Principal Axes ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The 19Th Century

The bibliography of Spanish international law textbooks is a good indicator of the evolution of the historiography of international law. Spanish historiography, with its own special features, was a recipient of the great debates concerning naturalism v. positivism and universalism v. particularism that flourished in European and American historiography in the nineteenth century. This study is articulated on four principal axes. The first states how the writings of the philosophes continued to dominate the way in which the subject was conceived in mid-nineteenth century Spain. Secondly, it explores the popularization and democratization of international law through the work of Concepcion Arenal and the heterodox thought of Rafael Maria de Labra. Thirdly, it examines the first textbooks of international law with their distinct natural law bias, but imbued with certain positivist elements. These textbooks trawled sixteenth century Spanish history, searching for the origins of international law and thus demonstrating the historical civilizing role of Spain, particularly in America. Fourthly, it considers the vision of institutionist, heterodox reformers and bourgeois liberals who proclaimed the universality of international law, not without some degree of ambivalence, and their defence of Spain as the object of civilization and also a civilizing subject. In conclusion, the article argues that the late development of textbooks was a consequence of the late institutionalization of the study of international law during the last decade of the nineteenth century. Nevertheless, the legacy of the nineteenth century survives in the most progressive of contemporary polemics for a new international law.

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