scholarly journals The Empire of International Law?

2019 ◽  
Vol 113 (1) ◽  
pp. 183-199
Author(s):  
Karen J. Alter
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
League Of Nations ◽  
Law School ◽  
Public International Law ◽  
Self Defense ◽  
Sovereign Equality ◽  
History Of ◽  
Pan American ◽  
The Hague ◽  
History Of International Law

This review essay examines three intellectual histories focused on fundamental transformations of international law in the early twentieth century. Juan Pablo Scarfi's Hidden History of International Law in the Americas is most interested in debates about a Pan-American international law, meaning the idea that international law might work differently in different regions, which was debated but eventually gave way to the change that Arnulf Becker Lorca, a Lecturer in Public International Law at Georgetown Law, discusses. Becker Lorca's Mestizo International Law is most interested in how the conception that international law applied only to civilized nations transformed into the modern conception that presumes sovereign equality. The Internationalists, by Oona Hathaway and Scott Shapiro, respectively the Gerard C. and Bernice Latrobe Smith Professor of International Law and the Charles F. Southmayd Professor of Law and Professor of Philosophy at Yale Law School, and seeks to understand how the normal (and legal) recourse to force in international relations was replaced by an international law that bans the use of force, except in self-defense. Ideas regarding these issues started to evolve in the late 1800s, but the transformative debates occurred at roughly the same time because the Hague Peace Conferences and the League of Nations allowed contestations over old versus updated understandings of international law to flourish.

Carl Schmitt and International Law

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martti Koskenniemi
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Doctoral Dissertation ◽  
League Of Nations ◽  
Carl Schmitt ◽  
Legal Realism ◽  
Treaty Of Versailles ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Of International Law ◽  
Theory Of Law ◽  
Concept Of Law

Carl Schmitt always presented himself and was above all a jurist. His doctoral dissertation was based on an antiformal theory of law that was also in evidence in his acerbic critics of the League of Nations and the system of control over Germany established in the Treaty of Versailles. This chapter shows that the concrete-order thinking of his later years espoused a more conventional legal realism that has always constituted an important stream of international jurisprudence. Schmitt’s main postwar work, Nomos der Erde, puts forward an influential view of the history of international law as inextricably entangled with the imperial pretensions. This chapter argues that the much-cited book, together with Schmitt’s polemical concept of law and his critiques of the discriminatory concept of war, has proven a fruitful basis for much of today’s postcolonial jurisprudence.

A Short History of International Law

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen C Neff
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
League Of Nations ◽  
Ancient World ◽  
Classical Period ◽  
Law Of Nations ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Law ◽  
History Of International Law

This chapter presents a brief history of international law. It proceeds chronologically, beginning with an overview of the ancient world, followed by a more detailed discussion of the great era of natural law in the European Middle Ages. The classical period (1600–1815) witnessed the emergence of a dualistic view of international law, with the law of nature and the law of nations co-existing (more or less amicably). In the nineteenth century—the least-known part of international law—doctrinaire positivism was the prevailing viewpoint, though not the exclusive one. For the inter-war years, developments both inside and outside the League of Nations are considered. The chapter concludes with some historically oriented comments on international law during the post-1945 period.

Responsibility of States for Damages Caused in their Territory to the Person or Property of Foreigners

1930 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 500-516 ◽  
Author(s):  
Green H. Hackworth
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
League Of Nations ◽  
The Body ◽  
Western Hemisphere ◽  
Private International Law ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Conflict Of Laws ◽  
Public International Law ◽  
International Private Law ◽  
The Hague

From time to time since the middle of the nineteenth century various efforts have been made to codify international law. Most of these have dealt with administrative and international private law (the conflict of laws) and more particularly with the laws of war and neutrality. Some of these efforts, particularly those of jurists of the Western Hemisphere, have, included in their scope the whole field of public and private international law. It was, however, left for the League of Nations to launch upon a world-wide effort to place in code form those rules which are regarded as the body of law on three important subjects of public international law. These efforts culminated in the Codification Conference held at The Hague from March 13 to April 12, inclusive, 1930. The three subjects before that Conference were Nationality, Territorial Waters, and Responsibility of States for Damage Caused in Their Territory to the Person or Property of Foreigners.

scholarly journals EL LEGADO DE LA SOCIEDAD DE NACIONES: THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS AND THE EMERGENCE OF INTERNATIONAL ADMINISTRATION: FINDING THE ORIGINS OF INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTIONAL LAW

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (71) ◽  
pp. 285-293
Author(s):  
Richard Collins
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Institutional Design ◽  
League Of Nations ◽  
World War ◽  
Institutional Governance ◽  
The First World War ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Of International Law ◽  
Modern Era ◽  
First World

n contemporary reflections on the history of international law and international organization the creation of the League of Nations in the aftermath of the First World War stands as a critical dividing line between an older, pre-institutionalised era of sovereign coexistence and a modern era of cooperation, conflict resolution and institutional governance. Projecting forwards from this point, however, the legacy of the League in its somewhat short-lived existence is rather more mixed. In terms of what was clearly its primary purpose, to pacify inter-state diplomacy and put an end to the scourge of war, its overriding failure is well-known and does not need repeating here. However, in terms of the League’s contribution to the project of international organisation its contribution has been considerable and often overlooked. In fact, as Pitman Potter has claimed, the League has arguably made «a far greater contribution to the progress of international organisation than any other institution in history». Indeed, as Philippe Sands and Pierre Klein have equally commented, that it failed in its primary purpose —and, indeed, did so quite dramatically— cannot be blamed so much on its institutional design as a more profound failure of political will of those states that were tasked with making the institution work.

The Hague Conference on The Codification of International Law

1930 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 52-57 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jesse S. Reeves
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
League Of Nations ◽  
Special Technique ◽  
World Conference ◽  
Preparatory Committee ◽  
The Status ◽  
Pan American ◽  
The Hague ◽  
First World ◽  
Preparatory Work

There is being developed a special technique of codification. The Sixth Pan American Conference at Havana adopted in the form of seven conventions a codification of that number of topics in public international law; namely, on the status of aliens, treaties, diplomatic privileges and immunities, asylum, civil strife, and maritime neutrality. The preparatory work had been done by (a) the American Institute of International Law working through its executive committee, and (b) the Rio Commission of Jurists reestablished by the Fifth Pan American Conference. The proposed world conference upon codification has now been called to meet at The Hague in the spring of this year. There have been no official indications as yet of its postponement because of other international conferences. The machinery created by the League of Nations to perform the work preparatory to this conference has been functioning since 1925. The working of this machinery has already been described in this Jo u rn al down to the creation of the present Preparatory Committee for the Codification Conference. It will be remembered that the Committee of Experts for the Progressive Codification of International Law, composed of sixteen members, prepared a provisional list of topics suitable for codification by international agreement, made reports upon various topics, submitted questionnaires upon seven of them to the various governments, and selected therefrom three topics as the agenda of the first world conference on codification. This cpmmittee also made one general and two special reports upon the further work of codification, with some indications as to procedure.

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