scholarly journals International Law as a Help or Hinderance to World Peace

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 447-459
Author(s):  
Alexander Gilder
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Review Essay ◽  
International System ◽  
World Peace ◽  
International Organisations ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Of International Law ◽  
Made In

Abstract World Peace (And How We Can Achieve It) looks towards a future where there is increasingly optimistic engagement with the concept of peace. Bellamy assesses why the world is the way it is before making suggestions for how the world can achieve peace. Bellamy suggests world peace is achievable and in the final chapter constructs his articles for world peace. This review essay engages with several themes in the book looking at how the history of international law is framed by the author before assessing Bellamy’s arguments in relation to the state and international organisations. Lastly, the essay casts a legal eye over the author’s articles for world peace. The articles will be of particular interest to readers in international law as they are embedded in the existing systems and structures of the prevailing international system. However, the articles contain the important inclusion of individuals and the role they play in achieving world peace. World Peace allows international lawyers to think more deeply about peace and the points made in this essay raise some issues that may be further debated as scholars map the paths to peace.

Conclusions

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amy Strecker
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Eu Law ◽  
World Heritage Convention ◽  
State Practice ◽  
The World ◽  
State Obligations ◽  
Made In ◽  
Landscape Protection

The final chapter of this book advances four main conclusions on the role of international law in landscape protection. These relate to state obligations regarding landscape protection, the influence of the World Heritage Convention and the European Landscape Convention, the substantive and procedural nature of landscape rights, and the role of EU law. It is argued that, although state practice is lagging behind the normative developments made in the field of international landscape protection, landscape has contributed positively to the corpus of international cultural heritage law and indeed has emerged as a nascent field of international law in its own right.

Divide and Then Preside: the Dilemma of the First Asian President of the Permanent Court of International Justice in the Age of Empires: a Review Essay on Yanagihara Masaharu and Shinohara Hatsue Eds, Adachi Mineichirō (2017)

2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 421-442
Author(s):  
Tomoko Akami
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Review Essay ◽  
Historical Development ◽  
Review Article ◽  
International Justice ◽  
Judicial System ◽  
National History ◽  
International History ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Of International Law

Abstract Adachi Mineichirō was the first non-European and the first Asian President of the Permanent Court of International Justice (1931–1934). This review article introduces the first substantial study of Adachi, focusing on his path of ‘becoming’ one of a few leading international jurists with non-Euro-American backgrounds in his period. This review essay demonstrates that by examining this Japanese diplomat and jurist, the book, written in Japanese, contributes to the debates on the history of international law in two significant ways. First, it reveals the fundamental issues in the development of the international judicial system, namely the nature of international jurists, empires and the principle of the equality of national sovereignty, and the significance of the roles of non-Euro-American actors in shaping the system. Secondly, it demonstrates the necessity of the inter-disciplinary collaboration between international law, international history and specific regional and national history, as well as methodological challenges in evaluating the historical development of the system.

The Law of Nations in Global History

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. H. Alexandrowicz
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Global History ◽  
Law Of Nations ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Of Law ◽  
History Of International Law ◽  
Regional Histories ◽  
International Rule

In recent years there has been a growing awareness of the need to write a global history of law of nations that disengages from parochial national and regional histories. It is hoped that these developments will bring centre-stage the work of Charles Henry Alexandrowicz (1902–75), a scholar who was among the first to conceptualize the history of international law as that of intersecting histories of different regions of the world. Alexandrowicz was aware that, while the idea of writing a global history of law of nations is liberating, there is no guarantee that it will not become the handmaiden of contemporary and future imperial projects. What were needed were critical global histories that provincialize established Eurocentric historiographies and read them alongside other regional histories. This book aims to make Alexandrowicz’s writings more widely available and read. The Introduction to this book sums up the context, issues, problems, and questions that engaged Alexandrowicz, as well as some of his central theses. His writings are a gold mine waiting to be explored. Alexandrowicz contributed to the effort of promoting the idea of international rule of law by rejecting a Eurocentric history and theory of international law.

International Law’s Cabinet of Curiosities

2018 ◽  
pp. 15-29
Author(s):  
Daniel Joyce
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
International Law ◽  
Critical Reflection ◽  
Digital Era ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Of International Law ◽  
Cabinet Of Curiosities

This chapter considers the significance of objects for international law through the lens of collecting and curation. It focusses upon the history of the cabinet of curiosities (or wunderkammer) as a precursor to the modern museum. The metaphor of the cabinet of curiosities reveals the folly of international law’s ambition to represent and order the world. Interpreting and critiquing the history of international law in light of its material culture reveals its Eurocentricity and connection to empire. The chapter invites critical reflection upon the volume as a whole as a cabinet of curiosities, open to its limitations as a collection, but also offering innovation and contemporary insight through its idiosyncrasy and personal form. It concludes by considering the turn to materiality in the context of broader anxieties generated by the digital era.

The Authority of Vattel

1913 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 395-410 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles G. Fenwick
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
International Law ◽  
The Political ◽  
Law Of Nations ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Law ◽  
History Of International Law ◽  
Political Philosopher

There is no more significant commentary on the growth of international law, both in precision and in comprehensiveness, than an estimate of the relative authority of the name of Vattel in the world of international relations a century ago and in that of today. A century ago not even the name of Grotius himself was more potent in its influence upon questions relating to international law than that of Vattel. Vattel's treatise on the law of nations was quoted by judicial tribunals, in speeches before legislative assemblies, and in the decrees and correspondence of executive officials. It was the manual of the student, the reference work of the statesman, and the text from which the political philosopher drew inspiration. Publicists considered it sufficient to cite the authority of Vattel to justify and give conclusiveness and force to statements as to the proper conduct of a state in its international relations.At the present day the name and treatise of Vattel have both passed into the remoter field of the history of international law. It is safe to say that in no modern controversy over the existence and force of an alleged rule of international law would publicists seek to strengthen the position taken by them by quoting the authority of Vattel. As an exposition of the law of nations at a given period of its growth, the work can, it is true, lose nothing of its value, but in saying that it has thus won its place irrevocably among the classics of international law, we are merely repeating that it has lost its value as a treatise on the law of the present day.

The Moving Cultural Frontier of World Order: From Monotheism to North-South Relations

1981 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ali A. Mazrui
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
International System ◽  
World Order ◽  
Developmental System ◽  
Know How ◽  
Class Stratification ◽  
The World ◽  
Cultural Themes ◽  
History Of ◽  
Good And Evil

This essay argues that the history of the international system has revolved around a moving frontier of cultural exclusivity. Originating under monotheism, the cultural frontier has been characterized by a persistent “us/them” dichotomy. Civilizations which anthropomorphized God in monarchical terms tended to divide the world between the God-fearing and the sinner. This tendency was reinforced by the culture of politics which differentiated supporters from adversaries. Both were embodied in early international law such that a system of rules for civilized nations did not apply to ‘them’ – the rest of the world, thus opening the door to imperialism and eventual class stratification in the international system. Although the cultural frontier has been moving due to secular challenges, the major challenges to Judaeo-Christian monotheism – Marxism and Islam – are themselves dualistic: the Marxist dialectic is inherently of this nature as is the tension between good and evil in Islam. The interrelationship between major cultural themes in today's world, coupled with a developmental system of stratification which is based on technical know-how, suggests that important but hidden problems of a cultural nature are contained in the world order agenda.

scholarly journals Made in Empire: Finding the History of International Law in Imperial Locations

2018 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 473-478 ◽  
Author(s):  
LAUREN BENTON
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Special Volume ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Of International Law ◽  
Interdisciplinary Scholarship ◽  
Made In

AbstractA wave of interdisciplinary scholarship in the last two decades has managed to place empires at the center of the history of international law. This article surveys key insights resulting from this move and assesses remaining challenges. In explaining how the study of law in particular imperial locations can illuminate global legal transformations, the article identifies cross-cutting themes of articles in this special volume.

International relations and the critical history of International Law

2017 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 282-298 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Pitts
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
International Relations ◽  
International Law ◽  
International System ◽  
Postcolonial Studies ◽  
Global Politics ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Critical History ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Of International Law

Just as the contemporary global structure is a product of nineteenth-century economic and political developments, namely, industrial capitalism and global empires dominated by European metropoles, a misleading conception of the international system as composed of formally equal sovereign states is a product of the same period, as Vattel’s conception of states as equal moral persons was taken up and transformed in the early nineteenth century, especially in imperial Britain. This model continues to shape interpretations of global politics in International Relations (IR), despite the persistence of the imperial legacy in the form of a stratified globe. Historical work informed by postcolonial studies and recent scholarship in International Law can give IR greater analytical and critical purchase on the current global order.

scholarly journals History of International Law Since the Peace of Westphalia

1912 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 30-69 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amos S. Hershey
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
Public Law ◽  
The Other ◽  
Relative Value ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Main Factors ◽  
History Of International Law ◽  
The One

The treaties of Münster and Osnabrück gave to Europe a sort of international constitution which remained the basis of its public law down to the French Revolution. But it would be a serious error to assume that the international community of states as revealed to the world by the Peace of Westphalia implied the recognition of the science of international law as understood and practiced by the society of nations at the present time. The science of international law as it exists today is a result of slow historical growth and is the product of two main factors, viz., certain theories or principles on the one hand, and international practice or custom on the other. The relative value and influence of the contributions of each of these factors is so difficult to determine that they have never been thoroughly eifted or separated — a task left for the future historians of international law.

The Emergence of the International Law Societies

1957 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 361-380 ◽  
Author(s):  
Irwin Abrams
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
World Politics ◽  
League Of Nations ◽  
Peace Movement ◽  
Woodrow Wilson ◽  
Half Century ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Of International Law ◽  
Significant Expression

The history of world politics of the half century before 1914 is full of nationalist wars, imperialist conflicts, and the diplomacy of the armed peace. To the less spectacular developments of internationalism so little attention is usually paid that the League of Nations almost seems to emerge full-grown from the head of Woodrow Wilson. It is true that the dominant trend in the relations between the sovereign states was anything but pacific, and the peoples were increasingly swayed by the emotion of aggressive nationalism. At the same time the world was becoming more interdependent economically and culturally, and there was a quiet but clearly perceptible growth of international-mindedness. A significant expression of this development was the movement of ideas in the eighteen-seventies which led to the establishment of two important law societies, the Institute of International Law and the International Law Association. The story of their origins is an interesting chapter in the history of international law and throws light as well upon its relationships with the organized peace movement.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document