Introduction

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
Gabriela A. Frei
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Research Area ◽  
Reference Points ◽  
Maritime Law ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
State Practice ◽  
Close Relationship ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Of International Law ◽  
Definition Of

The Introduction provides an outline of the theme of the book, explaining the focus on state practice, custom, and the codification of international maritime law. State practice and custom were important reference points for the codification of international maritime law, and William E. Hall’s definition of international law serves as a starting point for the reflection on the importance of state practice for the making of international law. History was also an important reference point for early international lawyers, and Theodore D. Woolsey’s explanation helps to understand the close relationship between history and law more generally. The history of international law has become a vibrant research area in recent decades thanks to Martti Koskenniemi, whose works have contributed to the understanding of the construction of a legal argument and the philosophical basis of international law.

scholarly journals Theorising Order in the Shadow of War. The Politics of International Legal Knowledge and the Justification of Force in Modernity

2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 218-245
Author(s):  
Hendrik Simon
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Law And Politics ◽  
State Practice ◽  
Long Time ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Of International Law ◽  
Modern War ◽  
War Discourse

Abstract The History of International Law lacks systematic studies on the link between legal scholars and practices of justifying war. This missing analytical link has for a long time given the impression that legal scholars describe ‘state practice’ in an ‘objective’, unpolitical way. Contradicting this impression, the article turns to the politics of legal scholars in the genesis of the modern war discourse. It reflects on the fateful entanglement of violence, law and politics, but nevertheless distinguishes between ‘objective’ and ‘political’ scholarship on the basis of Hans Kelsen’s work. Furthermore, the article illustrates the politicisability of legal scholars in selected historical cases of the ‘long 19th century’ (1789–1918). In all cases, two hearts pounded in lawyers’ chests: one scientific, the other political. As will be shown, the modern war discourse is shaped by a phenomenon that enables scholars to expand the intrinsic limits to the political instrumentalisation of law: ‘multi-normativity’.

Case Law in Russian Approaches to International Law

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lauri Mälksoo
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Case Law ◽  
Main Method ◽  
International Courts ◽  
Russian State ◽  
State Practice ◽  
Structural Differences ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Of International Law ◽  
Distinct Approach

In her comparative study on the use of case law in international law textbooks, Anthea Roberts demonstrates a number of structural differences between textbooks in different countries. This chapter further explores the Russian situation and asks whether Roberts’s comparative findings regarding Russian international law textbooks reflect the dominant approach in Russian international law scholarship, and whether they also reflect a distinct approach in Russian state practice. It then discusses what might explain both Russian scholarly and governmental approaches and, finally, what international lawyers can learn from this practice in the context of comparative international law. Cautiousness about case law and international courts has historically been characteristic of the Russian approach to international law. The main method used in this chapter is a historical one, because only the history of international law and its ideas can teach us how concrete legal-political circumstances in a country have come into being.

Stability and Change in Times of Fragmentation: The Limits of Pacta Sunt Servanda Revisited

2012 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 909-934 ◽  
Author(s):  
CHRISTINA BINDER
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
International Investment ◽  
State Responsibility ◽  
International Human Rights Law ◽  
International Investment Law ◽  
Force Majeure ◽  
State Practice ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Law ◽  
History Of International Law

AbstractStability versus change is one of the fundamental debates of the law of treaties. The limits of pacta sunt servanda – under which conditions a state may derogate from treaty obligations when circumstances change – appears as a constant throughout the history of international law. This article examines the limits of pacta sunt servanda in times of fragmentation. It first discusses the mechanisms of general international law – supervening impossibility of performance and fundamental change of circumstances (Articles 61 and 62 VCLT) in the law of treaties and force majeure and the state of necessity (Articles 23 and 25 of the ILC Articles on State Responsibility) in the law of state responsibility. It is argued that they provide only insufficient means to accommodate change. Against that background, derogation is examined in specific treaty regimes, including international human rights law, the law of the sea, and international investment law. Treaty-based termination/withdrawal clauses and emergency exceptions are analysed accordingly. Especially the latter are formulated in a regime-specific way, adapting derogation from treaty obligations to the requirements of the respective treaty regimes. On the basis of an empirical analysis of relevant state practice it is argued that this regime-specificity – a sign of fragmentation – is especially important since there is an increased need for temporary derogation in contemporary international law.

The Renaissance of Roman Colonization

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Roman History ◽  
Italian Renaissance ◽  
Ancient Rome ◽  
Legal Interpretation ◽  
Colonial Discourse ◽  
Property Distribution ◽  
Carlo Sigonio ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Of International Law

The colonization policies of Ancient Rome followed a range of legal arrangements concerning property distribution and state formation, documented in fragmented textual and epigraphic sources. Once antiquarian scholars rediscovered and scrutinized these sources in the Renaissance, their analysis of the Roman colonial model formed the intellectual background for modern visions of empire. What does it mean to exercise power at and over distance? This book foregrounds the pioneering contribution to this debate of the great Italian Renaissance scholar Carlo Sigonio (1522/3–84). His comprehensive legal interpretation of Roman society and Roman colonization, which for more than two centuries remained the leading account of Roman history, has been of immense (but long disregarded) significance for the modern understanding of Roman colonial practices and of the legal organization and implications of empire. Bringing together experts on Roman history, the history of classical scholarship, and the history of international law, this book analyses the context, making, and impact of Sigonio’s reconstruction of the Roman colonial model. It shows how his legal interpretation of Roman colonization originated and how it informed the development of legal colonial discourse, from visions of imperial reform and colonial independence in the nascent United States of America, to Enlightenment accounts of property distribution, culminating in a specific juridical strand in twentieth-century Roman historiography. Through a detailed analysis of scholarly and political visions of Roman colonization from the Renaissance until today, this book shows the enduring relevance of legal interpretations of the Roman colonial model for modern experiences of empire.

Great Britain, International Law, and the Evolution of Maritime Strategic Thought, 1856–1914

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gabriela A. Frei
Keyword(s):  
Great Britain ◽  
International Law ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Economic Interests ◽  
Maritime Law ◽  
Legal Norms ◽  
State Practice ◽  
Sea Power ◽  
Maritime Strategy ◽  
Strategic Thought

The book addresses the interaction between international maritime law and maritime strategy in a historical context, arguing that both international law and maritime strategy are based on long-term state interests. Great Britain as the predominant sea power in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries shaped the relationship between international law and maritime strategy like no other power. The book explores how Great Britain used international maritime law as an instrument of foreign policy to protect its strategic and economic interests, and how maritime strategic thought evolved in parallel to the development of international legal norms. The book offers an analysis of British state practice as well as an examination of the efforts of the international community to codify international maritime law in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. As the predominant sea power and also the world’s largest carrier of goods, Great Britain had to balance its interests as both a belligerent and a neutral power. With the growing importance of international law in international politics, the book examines the role of international lawyers, strategists, and government officials who shaped state practice. Great Britain’s neutrality for most of the period between 1856 and 1914 influenced its state practice and its perceptions of a future maritime conflict. Yet, the codification of international maritime law at The Hague and London conferences at the beginning of the twentieth century demanded a reassessment of Great Britain’s legal position.

scholarly journals Introduction

2017 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 799-800
Author(s):  
MÓNICA GARCÍA-SALMONES ROVIRA ◽  
PAOLO AMOROSA
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Colonial Legacy ◽  
Normative Systems ◽  
Diverse Backgrounds ◽  
History Of ◽  
Colonial Governance ◽  
History Of International Law

The deep relation between the colonial past and contemporary international law has been convincingly established. Scholars from diverse backgrounds, employing a variety of approaches, have shown the multifaceted ways in which the colonial enterprise occasioned the birth of doctrines and practices that are still in common use. The conference that occasioned this symposium, the last of the project History of International Law: Between Religion and Empire, directed by Martti Koskenniemi, was held in Helsinki in October 2016 and approached the issue of the colonial legacy of international law from the point of view of specific histories. The ‘techniques of empire’ raised at the conference encompassed colonial governance in the broadest sense, looking at practices, norms and normative systems, doctrines and concepts, and events. The case studies making up the articles featured in the symposium treat subjects as diverse as the experiences of colonialism have been, assuming an array of forms. Even so, from the multiplicity of techniques certain patterns and themes emerge.

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