scholarly journals Turntablism in the History of International Law

2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 472-496
Author(s):  
Jean d’Aspremont
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
New Music ◽  
First Century ◽  
Historical Narratives ◽  
Sound Effects ◽  
Historical Turn ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Of International Law ◽  
The Many ◽  
Shed Light

Abstract This article uses the metaphor of turntablism to shed light on the confinement of international lawyers’ engagement with history to the terms, vocabularies, and categories of the very historical narratives they seek to evaluate, disrupt, or displace. For the sake of this article, turntablism is understood here as the art of creating new music and sound effects by using one or several turntables on which a record is placed. This article argues that twenty-first century international lawyers engaging with the history of international law are talented turntablists in that the many historiographical works of international lawyers produced since the so-called ‘historical turn’ have remained confined to the very terms, categories, and vocabularies of the histories whose creation they have been discoursing and theorising. This article ultimately shows that turntablism is not the inevitable fate of international lawyers engaging with history, and that a radical historical critique is possible and should be promoted.

The Critical Attitude and the History of International Law

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 1-60
Author(s):  
Jean d’Aspremont
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Historical Narratives ◽  
International Literature ◽  
Critical Attitude ◽  
Historical Turn ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Of International Law

AbstractThis article questions the critical attitude that is informing the critical histories that have been flourishing since the ‘historical turn’ in international law. It makes the argument that the ‘historical turn’ falls short of being radically critical as the abounding critical histories which have come to populate the international literature over the last decades continue to be orchestrated along the very lines set by the linear historical narratives which they seek to question and disrupt. This article argues that the critical histories must move beyond a mere historiographical attitude and promotes radical historical critique in order to unbridle disciplinary imagination.

scholarly journals Relationship between international law and religion

Globus ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. Mammadov ◽  
◽  
Zh. Mammadova ◽  
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
International Law ◽  
Detailed Analysis ◽  
Mutual Influence ◽  
First Century ◽  
Basic Principles ◽  
History Of ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
History Of International Law

This article is devoted to the problems of mutual influence and interaction of international law and religion. In particular, it examines the development of international law and the sources of religion. In addition, which areas of international law are most developed under the influence of religious provisions. The history of international law knows various theories under which international law has improved. The article provides a detailed analysis of these theories and views, noting the institutions of international law that arose directly under the influence of religion. For example, it is noted that under the influence of Relia, the UN Charter codifies the basic principles of international law, etc. In addition, it shows the challenges of religion to international law and relations in the era of globalization in the twenty-first century, which led even to the undermining of modern international relations and traditional religious concepts caused by the " return of religion” in international relations; secondly, it presents and discusses the research path of religion and international relations. Finally, a brief analysis of the 2 impact of the global revival of religion and the ”return of religion" in international law and international relations has been carried out

The Problem of Periodization in the History of International Law

2019 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 275-308
Author(s):  
Ignacio de la Rasilla
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Legal History ◽  
Contemporary Literature ◽  
Normative Approach ◽  
The Third ◽  
Institutional Approach ◽  
Historical Turn ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Of International Law ◽  
Sat 1

The first part of the article presents a six-tiered typology of conventional approaches to historical periodization in international law. The “hegemonic” approach, the “Eurocentric universalist” approach, the “state-centric” approach, the “intellectual doctrinal” approach, the “institutional” approach, and the “normative” approach to the question of periodization of the history of international law are surveyed in turn in the light of contemporary literature. The second part examines how in the wake of the recent “historical turn” in international law a new critical historiographical wave has problematized the question of periodization because of the homogenizing effects and the “teleology of progress” to which periodization is interpreted to contribute in international legal history. The third part tackles the notion of “alternative periodization” illustrating, with examples from contemporary literature in the history of international law, its value as a launching pad for the “formation of new, formerly unknown periods,” a task that is considered “an essential part of historiographical innovation.” The conclusion elaborates on the heuristic potential of a multiperspectival approach to the study of periodization in the history of international law.Saepe stilum vertas,iterum quae digna legi sunt scripturusHor., Sat. 1, 10, 72

scholarly journals The turn to history in international law and the sources doctrine: Critical approaches and methodological imaginaries

2019 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-56 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matilda Arvidsson ◽  
Miriam Bak McKenna
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Causal Relationship ◽  
Historical Turn ◽  
Critical Approaches ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Of International Law ◽  
A Site ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Opening Up

AbstractExpanding now familiar debates about the impact of the ‘historical turn’ upon the field of international law, this article considers some of the different ways in which ‘turn to history’ scholars have confronted the methodological and theoretical tensions arising from the central, yet paradoxical, role occupied by the sources doctrine in international law. We suggest that the anxiety over the sources of international law as the basic methodological precepts of the discipline has been a catalyzing element for a radical reengagement with the canon of international law, one with a significant impact on the field’s existing parameters and doctrinal limits. Within the three streams of scholarship we explore here, history has become a site of creative engagement for scholars in opening up the discipline to diverse ends, one in which a new doctrinal universe can be created, and new issues, sources, subjects, and approaches can be explored. Yet, by opening up international law’s sources doctrine, reactionary causes and unjust ends may equally well be the result. This account is an attempt at diversifying the narrative surrounding the causal relationship between history and the ongoing changes to the field of international law, along with the differential practices, techniques and epistemological foundations behind the history of international law as an evolving discipline, and of the different scholarly motivations of its specialists.

International Legal Histories as Orders: An Afterword to Martti Koskenniemi’s Foreword

2019 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 1115-1119
Author(s):  
Francesca Iurlaro
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Critical Reflection ◽  
Legal Order ◽  
A Posteriori ◽  
Contemporary World ◽  
Hugo Grotius ◽  
International Legal Order ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Of International Law ◽  
The Many

Abstract In this article I address the question of what Martti Koskenniemi refers to in his EJIL Foreword as Hugo Grotius’ legal imagination – the type of values he was trying to convey and the strategies he meant to pursue while constructing his idea of an international legal order. As a matter of fact, focusing on such an apparently narrow aspect is not just relevant to those with a historical interest in Grotius. It also tells us something about the inveterate relationship between international law and historiographic practices. What I want to suggest here is that the history of international law is not just an a posteriori critical reflection on the international legal order – a subgenre for lovers of intellectual escapism in search of a distraction from the many problems of the contemporary world – but, rather, that one of the many successful projects of international law was (and still is) the ambition to order the world through histories.

International Law in the Historical Present Tense

2009 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 629-649 ◽  
Author(s):  
IGNACIO DE LA RASILLA DEL MORAL
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
International Law ◽  
Evolutionary Dynamics ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Editorial Policy ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
Historical Turn ◽  
History Of ◽  
Background Material ◽  
History Of International Law

Since it is traditionally labelled the most neglected aspect of the field, different triggering factors might account for the so-called ‘historical turn’ in international law in the post-Cold War era. On the material side, the preconditions for professional work in this area have been met by a certain democratization of research brought about by the progressive incorporation of new technologies and a trendy rising demand for international lego-historically oriented work from the publishing side. The emergence of specialist journals, the consecration – as a matter of editorial policy – of special issues in reputed publications to key historical doctrinal figures of international law, and the appearance of a number of emblematic book-length works (which have, in their turn, contributed to feeding the industry of historical international legal commentary) feature both as cause and as nurturing ongoing effect of the contemporary ‘global surge of interest in the history of international law and its scholarship’. While admittedly receptive in its evolutionary dynamics to these favourable background material academic conditions, a number of intra-disciplinary rationales should be concomitantly examined so as to account for the accompanying scholarly spiritual drive that has made it possible that the history of international law might today claim a disciplinary status of its own.

Human Rights: What Possibilities of Universalization?

2018 ◽  
Vol 43 (4) ◽  
pp. 403-420
Author(s):  
Alice Duarte
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Law ◽  
Historical Data ◽  
Armed Conflicts ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Dimension ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Of International Law ◽  
Shed Light

The history of international law is, to a certain extent, the history of the efforts undertaken to minimize or mitigate the effects of armed conflicts and human suffering. The aim of this article is to discuss the possibilities of an effective universalization of human rights today. It begins by identifying the medieval and humanist antecedents of international law and of what came to be the modern discourse of human rights. The historical data analyzed shed light on how the emergence of an idea of compassion for the Other, without exceptions, did not find sufficient grounds in the religious argument, and how to overcome it was the required condition for perceiving the Other as a similar being in more absolute terms. At the same time, these historical data make it quite clear how such a trajectory is, essentially, European or Western in nature. Then, in the second part of the article, I argue that the adjective “universal” is still inadequate to describe the current situation of human rights, but the possibility of it becoming appropriate is nevertheless not rejected. Such possibility will depend on the effective consolidation of an intercultural approach to human rights. Only then can we appropriately talk about the universality of human rights, the political dimension of such a change being unquestionable.

scholarly journals African International Legal Histories – International Law in Africa: Perspectives and Possibilities

2018 ◽  
Vol 31 (4) ◽  
pp. 897-914 ◽  
Author(s):  
JAKOB ZOLLMANN
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Legal History ◽  
Historical Narrative ◽  
First Century ◽  
International Borders ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Indian Ocean ◽  
State Succession ◽  
History Of International Law ◽  
Sea Area

AbstractHitherto, the ‘African part’ of the history of international law has often been limited to the (critical engagement with) ‘the acquisition of Africa’ since the 1880s and questions of ‘state succession’ and international borders following independence starting in the 1950s. In this historical narrative, the dominance of colonialism is evident. It seems that ‘Africa’ as a narrative concept in international legal history remains tied to abstract contrasts such as ‘foreign domination’ versus ‘independence’, or ‘exploitation’ versus ‘development’. However, if twenty-first century writings about ‘international law in Africa’ and its histories remain shaped by this perspective, historians may lose sight of issues, questions, or ideas formed in historical Africa that do not fit into this preconceived dichotomous matrix. After discussing methodological challenges, this article asks for other ‘contacts’, other arenas of ‘internationality’ and international law in Africa’s pre-colonial past. These contacts reach back very far in history. Three arenas are mentioned: the Red Sea area and Ethiopian-Arab relations; the Indian Ocean rim; and finally, the case of nineteenth-century Ethiopia.

scholarly journals History of Transnational Voluntary Associations

2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (4) ◽  
pp. 1-55 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas R. Davies
Keyword(s):  
Voluntary Associations ◽  
First Century ◽  
Peace Studies ◽  
Historical Evolution ◽  
Education Environment ◽  
Early Twenty ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Many ◽  
Shed Light

This review explores the history of transnational voluntary associations, commencing with general patterns before proceeding to cover the history of different sectors in turn, including humanitarianism, science, education, environment, feminism, race, health, human rights, labor, business, standards, professions, culture, peace, religion, and youth. Coverage extends from the late eighteenth century through to the early twenty-first century and spans histories of particular organizations and of particular campaigns in addition to the evolution of broader transnational social movements. Contrasting perspectives on historical evolution are considered, including both linear and cyclical interpretations. The factors underpinning historical changes are explored, including economic, environmental, political, scientific, and social developments. Insights are drawn not only from a transnational historical perspective, but also the many other disciplines that shed light on the subject, such as world sociology. The review also incorporates perspectives from international relations, development studies, peace studies, voluntary sector studies, and women’s studies. It argues that the historical evolution of transnational voluntary associations is longer, less Western in origin and more cyclical than traditionally assumed.

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