This collection of essays gathers contributions from leading international lawyers from different countries, generations and angles with the aim of highlighting the multifaceted history of international law. This volume questions and analyses the origins and foundations of the international legal system. A particular attention is devoted to Hugo Grotius as one of the founding fathers of the law of nations. Several contributions further question the positivist tradition initiated by Vattel and endorsed by scholars of the 19th Century. This immersion in the intellectual origins of international law is enriched by an inquiry into the practice of the law of nations, including its main patterns and changing evolution as well as the role of non-western traditions and the impact of colonization. Le présent ouvrage réunit les contributions de juristes internationaux reconnus en vue d’éclairer les multiples facettes de l’histoire du droit international public. L’ouvrage analyse et questionne les origines et les fondements de l’ordre juridique international. Une attention toute particulière est dédiée à Hugo Grotius l’un des pères fondateurs du droit international. D’autres contributions questionnent également la tradition positiviste initiée par Vattel et confortée par la doctrine du 19ème siècle. Cette immersion dans les origines doctrinales du système juridique international est enrichie par l’étude de la pratique du droit international public, son évolution ainsi que le rôle des traditions non-occidentales et l’impact de la colonisation.

For many centuries, thinkers have tried to understand and to conceptualize political and legal order beyond the boundaries of sovereign territories. Their concepts, deeply entangled with ideas of theology, state formation, and human nature, form the bedrock of todays theoretical discourses on international law. This volume engages with models of early international legal thought from Machiavelli to Hegel before international law in the modern sense became an academic discipline of its own. The interplay of system and order serves as a leitmotiv throughout the book, helping to link historical models to contemporary discourse. Part I of the book covers a diverse collection of thinkers in order to scrutinize and contextualize their respective models of the international realm in light of general legal and political philosophy. Part II maps the historical development of international legal thought more generally by distilling common themes and ideas, such as the relationship between universality and particularity, the role of the state, the influence of power and economic interests on the law, and the contingencies of time, space and technical opportunities. In the current political climate, where it appears that the reinvigorated concept of the nation state as an ordering force competes with internationalist thinking, the problems at issue in the classic theories point to contemporary questions: is an international system without central power possible? How can a normative order come about if there is no central force to order relations between states? These essays show that uncovering the history of international law can offer ways in which to envisage its future.

Fundamentals of Public International Law, by Giovanni Distefano, provides an overview of public international law’s main principles and fundamental institutions. By introducing the foundations of the legal reasoning underlying public international law, the extensive volume offers essential tools for any international lawyer, regardless of the specific field of specialization. Dealing expansively with subjects, sources and guarantees of international law, university students, scholars and practitioners alike will benefit from the book’s treatment of what has been called the “Institutes” of public international law.

This book takes an unflinching look at the roles and functions played by the idea of universality in international legal discourses, as well as the narratives of progress that often accompany it. In doing so, it provides a critical appraisal of the mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion attendant to international law and its universalist discursive strategies. Universality is therefore not reduced to the question of the geographical outreach of international law but is instead understood in terms of boundaries. This entails examining how the idea of universality was developed in the dominant vernaculars of international law - primarily English and French - before being universalised and imposed upon international lawyers from all traditions. This analysis simultaneously offers an opportunity to revisit the ideologies that constitute the identity of international lawyers today, as well as the socialisation and legal educational processes that international lawyers undergo. With an emphasis on the binaries that arise from the invocation of the idea of universality in international legal discourses, this book sheds new light on the idea of universality as a fraught site of contestation in international legal discourses.

Historiographical approaches in international investment law scholarship are becoming ever more important. This insightful book combines perspectives from a range of expert international law scholars who explore ways in which using a broad variety of methods in historical research can lead to a better understanding of international investment law.

The aim of the Hague Yearbook of International Law is to offer a platform for review of new developments in the field of international law. In addition, it devotes attention to developments in the international law institutions based in the international City of Peace and Justice, The Hague.

Explores how Vattel used the natural law tradition to frame a pragmatic and treaty-oriented model of the law of nations.