Concepción Arenal and the place of women in modern international law

2020 ◽  
Vol 88 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 211-253
Author(s):  
Ignacio de la Rasilla
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
International Law ◽  
Legal History ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
International Congress ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
History Of ◽  
Individual Contributions ◽  
History Of International Law ◽  
Academic Study

Summary This article examines the long-forgotten first book-length treatise on international law ever published by a woman in the history of international law. The first part places Concepción Arenal’s Ensayo sobre el Derecho de gentes (1879) in the historical context of the dawn of the international legal codification movement and the professionalisation of the academic study of international law. The second part surveys the scattered treatment that women as objects of international law and women’s individual contributions to international law received in international law histories up to the early twentieth century. It then draws many parallels between Arenal’s work and the influential resolutions of the first International Congress of Women in 1915 and surveys related developments during the interwar years. The conclusion highlights the need of readdressing the invisibility of women in international legal history.

Empires and Jurisdictional Politics

2020 ◽  
pp. 185-199
Author(s):  
Lauren Benton
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Legal History ◽  
World History ◽  
Legal Pluralism ◽  
Future Directions ◽  
Political Ideas ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Of International Law

The study of legal pluralism in empires has far-reaching implications for comparative legal history, world history, the history of international law, and the study of global legal pluralism. This chapter highlights three insights developed within this perspective and discusses some promising future directions for research. The first insight flows from the observation that jurisdictional politics in empires played a formative role in structuring processes of conquest and colonization. The second involves the finding that patterns of legal pluralism in empires influenced foundational legal and political ideas, in particular concepts of rights and sovereignty. A third derives from the analytical move of placing imperial legal politics at the heart of histories of global ordering. This chapter reviews each of these facets of the analysis of legal pluralism in empires to identify some critical lessons for understandings of global legal pluralism.

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.

2. The Historical Evolution of the International Community

2020 ◽  
pp. 20-44
Author(s):  
Paola Gaeta ◽  
Jorge E. Viñuales ◽  
Salvatore Zappalà
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
International Law ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Historical Evolution ◽  
World War ◽  
History Of ◽  
Independent States ◽  
History Of International Law ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Cold War

This chapter traces the historical evolution of the international legal system, which is organized for analytical purposes in four major stages: from its gradual emergence (sixteenth–early seventeenth century) to the First World War; from the establishment of the League of Nations to the end of the Second World War (1919–1945); from the establishment of the United Nations to the end of the Cold War (1945–1989); and the last three decades since the end of the Cold War (1990–2020). The chapter emphasizes the European roots of international law but also the pressure it has faced since the 1960s to reflect the interests of developing and newly independent States. It also provides some basic historical elements and references to the growing literature on the history of international law, which are useful to understand the historical context of the material examined in subsequent chapters.

A Legal History of Intimate Deception

2019 ◽  
pp. 99-133
Author(s):  
Jill Elaine Hasday
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Legal History ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Race And Gender ◽  
Legal Remedies ◽  
History Of ◽  
And Gender

This chapter places modern law in historical context. Over the course of the twentieth century, some legal remedies for intimate deception disappeared or became much less valuable. First, starting in 1935, a wave of state “anti-heart balm” laws abolished causes of action for seduction and breach of promise to marry that some women had been using to sue intimates who deceived them. Courts then interpreted anti-heart balm statutes expansively, relying on the laws to block a wide array of claims against deceptive intimates. Second, changing norms about race and gender left judges unwilling to grant redress for some types of intimate deception that they had once been willing to remediate. Third—and most significant in diminishing the volume of litigation—the advent and swift spread of no-fault divorce starting in 1970 meant that securing an annulment or fault-based divorce because of intimate deception became a much less valuable remedy.

scholarly journals THE INTRODUCTION OF BIOTERRORISM IN MALAYSIA: A LEGAL APPROACH

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rohani Abdul Rahim ◽  
Nor Anita Abdullah
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Infectious Diseases ◽  
International Law ◽  
Legal History ◽  
Biological Agents ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Real Situation ◽  
The Public ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Of International Law

The deliberate use of biological agents and the emergence of infectious diseases which can produce harm to human health and give effects to the public health and security are well recognised. A few years back, an attack of biological agents would be the most unthinkable situation to happen. However, the threat of bioterrorism is real and it is growing. It continues to be a major challenge today and the possibility of bioterrorism is undeniable as it is increasingly defined globally as ‘not if, but when’. Therefore, this paper attempts to give a brief explanation on the threat of bioterrorism as to the emergence of infectious diseases and the legal history of international law on bioterrorism. The main objective of this paper is to find out the need for bioterrorism law in Malaysian i.e. a legal approach. The study is a social legal research, which uses a qualitative approach. Thus, due to lack of materials and publications in Malaysia, in order to achieve the objectives, the methodology used was based on a semi structured interviews conducted with three respected experts in public health and security to explore the real situation in Malaysia. The authors found out that the finding of this study had established that an outbreak of infectious diseases can now be viewed as a threat that may result to bioterrorism if there is no preparation to handle it. Keywords: Bioterrorism, biological agents, infectious diseases, legal and preparedness

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

Geographical Dimension of Colonial Justice: Using GIS in Research on Law and History

2016 ◽  
Vol 34 (4) ◽  
pp. 1027-1045 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Ng ◽  
T. Edwin Chow ◽  
David W.S. Wong
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Hong Kong ◽  
Social History ◽  
Web Sites ◽  
Legal History ◽  
Information Science ◽  
Geographic Information ◽  
Digital Tool ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
History Of

This article reviews and reflects on the use of the geographic information system (GIS) as a tool, or geographic information science (GIScience) as a research methodology, and associated techniques of analysis in an empirical study-in-progress on the law and history of early twentieth century British Hong Kong. The article begins by introducing the study and its objectives, as well as the rationale for adopting GIS/GIScience as one of its research methodologies. It then highlights the preliminary findings of the current project and compares them with those of earlier research on the legal history of early twentieth century Beijing using GIS. The article also discusses the difficulties involved in adopting such a digital tool and methodology in historical research. It concludes by reflecting on what GIS can help scholars understand about the social history of law in Hong Kong, beyond what is already known, and how specialists in law, history, and geography can collaborate in a digital law and history project involving the use of GIS. This article also gives an overview of the use of GIS in conducting empirical research in the humanities (including but not limited to history and legal history research) and points to digital sources and web sites useful to researchers who may need tools and data to launch a GIS study in law and history.

Why Did Starvation Not Become the Paradigmatic War Crime in International Law?

2021 ◽  
pp. 370-388
Author(s):  
Nicholas Mulder ◽  
Boyd van Dijk
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
International Law ◽  
Legal History ◽  
History Of ◽  
Late Twentieth ◽  
Late Twentieth Century

In the late twentieth century, the starvation of civilian populations as a method of warfare came to be prohibited in international law. Yet starvation is still commonly used today. In retrospect, what is striking about its international legal history is that the ban itself happened so late and appears still so incomplete. Why did depriving non-combatants of the essential means of sustenance not come to be seen much earlier as a cruel form of wartime behaviour that should be unambiguously outlawed? This chapter critically analyses the history of the anti-starvation norm and explains not only why some political agendas for starvation were frequently tolerated, but also why others failed to reach the stage of codification, and what this tells us about its past and future. Understanding how and why people starve, what role the use of blockade and international law play, and to what degree Schreibtischmörder might be held responsible for it, gets to the heart of questions of contingency and international law.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document