BOOK: Fabian KLOSE, "In the Cause of Humanity". Eine Geschichte der humanitären Intervention im langen 19. Jahrhundert [Veröffentlichungen des Instituts für Europäische Geschichte Mainz; 256] (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2019), 516 p. 978-3-525-37084-1, OPEN ACCESS

(image source: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht)

Introduction:

Im Jahr 2000 veröffentlichte der damalige UN-Generalsekretär Kofi Annan anlässlich der Jahrtausendwende einen Bericht, in dem er die Rolle der Vereinten Nationen und die Herausforderungen für die Weltorganisation im beginnenden 21. Jahrhundert eingehend thematisierte. Seine umfangreichen Ausführungen, die sich von Fragen der Globalisierung, der weltweiten Armutsbekämpfung, der Friedenssicherung, des nachhaltigen Umweltund Klimaschutzes bis hin zu Strukturreformen der UN-Organisation selbst erstreckten, waren als Anregungen und Empfehlungen an die UN-Mitgliedsstaaten für den anstehenden Millenniumsgipfel gedacht, um dort gemeinsam Antworten auf drängende Probleme der Gegenwart und Zukunft zu finden. Die Durchsetzung universaler Menschenrechte war für Annan in diesem Zusammenhang von zentraler Bedeutung, und entsprechend plädierte er nachdrücklich für eine Verbesserung der dafür vorgesehenen internationalen Schutzmechanismen. Die dabei vorgeschlagenen neuen Strategien implizierten neben der Errichtung des Internationalen Strafgerichtshofs und der allgemeinen Stärkung des humanitären Völkerrechts auch das Konzept der humanitären Intervention, also die direkte, in letzter Konsequenz auch gewaltsame Einmischung von außen in die inneren Angelegenheiten eines souveränen Staates zum Schutz humanitärer Normen

Read the whole book for free here.

CALL FOR PAPERS: Mixed Arbitral Tribunals, 1919–1930: An Experiment in the International Adjudication of Private Rights (Luxemburg: MPI, 23-24 APR 2020) (DEADLINE 1 OCT 2019)

(image source: brandsoftheworld)

The creation of a system of Mixed Arbitral Tribunals (MATs) was a major contribution of the post-WWI peace treaties to the development of international adjudication. Numerically speaking, the 36 MATs were undoubtedly the busiest international courts of the interwar period. Taken together, they decided on more than 70,000 cases, mostly covering private rights. This caseload is even more impressive if one considers that their existence generally did not exceed 10 years, as most of the MATs were discontinued pursuant to the 1930 Young Plan. The MATs are similarly remarkable from a procedural point of view. First, their respective rules of procedure were so detailed that contemporaries described them as ‘miniature civil procedure codes’. Second, in a departure from most other international courts and tribunals, they also allowed individuals whose rights were at stake to become involved in the proceedings before them. Although the MATs failed to produce a universally consistent body of case-law, their collection of published decisions was a major source for legal doctrine in the 1920s and 1930s and remains of interest for international lawyers today. The MATs themselves served as a source of inspiration for other international and supranational courts and tribunals, including the European Court of Justice. Their example might similarly inspire potential future negotiations over institutionalized investment tribunals.

And yet, like many other international ‘experiments’ of the interwar period, the MATs are often barely mentioned in post-WWII accounts of international law. Despite (or perhaps because of) the amount of cases they handled and the vastness of archival records they generated, they have not given rise to a single major monograph after 1945.

By organizing a conference specifically dedicated to the MATs and their impact on international adjudication of private rights, the Max Planck Planck Institute Luxembourg for Procedural Law would like to provide researchers with the opportunity to shed new light on this often overlooked chapter in the history of international law.

The call is interested in legal, historical, and sociological research addressing issues such as:
- How the MATs contributed to the development of public international law;
- How the MATs contributed to private international law;
- How the MATs contributed to intellectual property law;
- How the MATs contributed to the foreign legal policies of individual states (both within and outside Europe);
- How the MATs contributed to the professionalisation of international law academics and practitioners;
- The role and sociology of non-state actors before the MATs;
- The relations between the MATs and other international institutions;
- The differences between the MATs and other dispute settlement mechanisms of the interwar period (notably the German–US Mixed Commission);
- The perception of the MATs by the press and the broader public at the time of their operation;
- The subsequent use of case law produced by the MATs by international institutions, legal scholars and practitioners;
- The subsequent impact of the MATs on international adjudication

From a methodological point of view, the call welcomes papers based on archival sources and/or on doctrinal writings and the case law of MATs.

Abstracts of no more than 600 words, written in English or French and including the author’s name, e-mail address and a one-page curriculum vitae, should be submitted to secretariatprof.ruizfabri@mpi.lu by 1 October 2019. Successful applicants will be notified via e-mail by 15 October 2019 and are expected to produce a draft paper by 10 April 2020. The organizers will cover/reimburse travel (economy) and accommodation costs.

Miroslav SEDIVY, "The Path to the Austro-Sardinian War: The Post-Napoleonic States System and the End of Peace in Europe in 1848", European History Quarterly XLIX (2019), No. 3

(image source: Sage)

Article abstract:

The aim of this article is to explain the long-term process leading to the decision of Sardinian King Charles Albert to wage war against Austria in March 1848. Moving beyond the normal stress on Italian national consciousness, the article focuses more on the King’s attitude towards the conduct of European powers in Italian affairs and attempts to prove that repeated illegal and aggressive actions of the European powers after 1830 destroyed the King’s faith in the fairness of the political-legal system established at the Congress of Vienna in 1815, leading also to his loss of faith in the strength of law and increasing his belief in the power of armed force in international relations. All this significantly contributed to his final decision to start a war of conquest against Austria, which he regarded as weak and thus no longer respected, much like his attitude towards the existing political-legal order in general.

More information here.

JOURNAL: Diplomacy and Statecraft XXX (2019), Issue 2 [Of War and Peace: Aspects of British Policy and the Treaty of Versailles]

(image source: idrottsforum)

Michael Dockrill: Historian of the Versailles Treaty: 7 November 1936-17 August 2018 (Brian Holden Reid)
Abstract:

The Treaty of Versailles is one of the twentieth century’s most controversial international agreements; and British policy towards the settlement with defeated Germany equally so. British policy at the Peace Conference stemmed from war aims developed after 1914 – desultory because of unexpected total war. In this process after December 1916, Prime Minister David Lloyd George controlled policy-making and, by late 1918, had general aims involving German territorial losses, disarmament, and paying for the war. Despite distrusting Foreign Office professionals, Lloyd George and his Downing Street advisors at Paris relied on non-professional experts through informal networks below them. One was James Headlam-Morley about the future of Danzig; and several pre-war historians also contributed in a profound way, their experiences stimulating the establishment of diplomatic history as a field of academic research and the emergence of the nascent discipline of international relations. On bigger issues, like Anglo-American naval rivalry that emerged at the Conference, Lloyd George sparred with President Woodrow Wilson. And as only Lloyd George of the Big Four survived politically after the Conference, development of his ideas and policies during the war and after played a major role in post-war international politics. Some issues at Paris have not received needed attention like the restitution of cultural objects in German possession: the Koran of Caliph Othman and the Skull of Sultan Mkwawa. Finally, after the war, the Treaty’s impact on both Britain’s enemy, Germany, and its ally, France profoundly affected the European balance of power.

Introduction: Of War and Peace: Aspects of British Policy and the Treaty of Versailles (B.J.C. McKercher & Erik Goldstein)
Abstract:

 The Treaty of Versailles is one of the twentieth century’s most controversial international agreements; and British policy towards the settlement with defeated Germany equally so. British policy at the Peace Conference stemmed from war aims developed after 1914 – desultory because of unexpected total war. In this process after December 1916, Prime Minister David Lloyd George controlled policy-making and, by late 1918, had general aims involving German territorial losses, disarmament, and paying for the war. Despite distrusting Foreign Office professionals, Lloyd George and his Downing Street advisors at Paris relied on non-professional experts through informal networks below them. One was James Headlam-Morley about the future of Danzig; and several pre-war historians also contributed in a profound way, their experiences stimulating the establishment of diplomatic history as a field of academic research and the emergence of the nascent discipline of international relations. On bigger issues, like Anglo-American naval rivalry that emerged at the Conference, Lloyd George sparred with President Woodrow Wilson. And as only Lloyd George of the Big Four survived politically after the Conference, development of his ideas and policies during the war and after played a major role in post-war international politics. Some issues at Paris have not received needed attention like the restitution of cultural objects in German possession: the Koran of Caliph Othman and the Skull of Sultan Mkwawa. Finally, after the war, the Treaty’s impact on both Britain’s enemy, Germany, and its ally, France profoundly affected the European balance of power.

The Quest for Stability: British War Aims and Germany, 1914–1918 (B.J.C. McKercher)
Abstract:

British war aims concerning Germany developed haphazardly during the Great War of 1914–1918. The vicissitudes of unexpectedly conducting total war–one lasting more than four years–periodically deflected their consideration. Inter-Allied diplomacy and pressures from non-governmental lobbyists from Central–Eastern Europe seeking independent states to succeed the Habsburg, Romanov, and Wilhelmine empires forced reconsideration at crucial moments, for instance, after the advent of the nascent Bolshevik regime in Russia in late 1917 to early 1918. So, too, did British public opinion. Nonetheless, the British government had a clear general strategy: return stability on the European continent. In this context, the prime minister after December 1916, David Lloyd George, became central. Beyond the general aim, however, he wanted to avoid firm commitments over a range of issues touching Germany to give him flexibility in negotiating with the other Allied leaders at the eventual Peace Conference. Thus, less concerned with the minutiae of transforming war aims involving German territorial losses, disarmament, and paying for the war, he looked to make deals that might lack strategic purpose.

“A House of Cards Which Would Not Stand”: James Headlam-Morley, the Role of Experts, and the Danzig Question at the Paris Peace Conference (D.B. Kaufman)
Abstract:

Recent years have witnessed increasing interest amongst international historians on the influence by experts on foreign policy decision making. Most work thus far has concentrated on American foreign policy since 1945, but this analysis broadens the focus to consider the impact of experts on British decision makers through the use of informal networks below the level of Cabinet ministers whilst debating the future of the city of Danzig at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919. It shows that despite a tendency by the protagonists to interpret their actions as subverting the official role and function of the Foreign Office, sufficient evidence can be found to suggest that through the use of back-channels to David Lloyd George, the prime minister, via Philip Kerr, his private secretary, some officials, such as James Headlam-Morley, within the Office managed to influence high-level decision making at Paris.

“The Light of History”: Scholarship and Officialdom in the Era of the First World War (T.G. Otte)
Abstract:

This analysis examines the interplay between academia and officialdom during the First World War and its immediate aftermath. The role of more especially historians prior to and during the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 and the degree to which they succeeded—or failed—to affect decision making have been examined in some considerable detail by recent scholarship. Far less attention has been paid to the impact of individual historians’ experience of employment in war-time government agencies on their post-war scholarly pursuits. The effect of the war on historical scholarship, in fact, was profound. Not the least, it stimulated the establishment of diplomatic history as a distinct field of academic research and the emergence of the nascent discipline of international relations led by scholars who had served in wartime intelligence. 

Lloyd George and the American Naval Challenge: “The Naval Battle of Paris” (John H. Maurer)
Abstract:

In the immediate aftermath of the First World War, naval competition loomed between Great Britain and the United States. This American naval challenge frustrated Britain’s leaders, who were determined to hold onto their country’s hard-won standing as the world’s leading sea Power. Britain’s Prime Minister David Lloyd George chose the setting of the negotiations at the Paris Peace Conference to force a showdown with American leaders in an attempt to curtail their naval shipbuilding. Much to Lloyd George’s chagrin, the Americans proved obdurate in negotiations. President Woodrow Wilson and his naval advisors refused to stop the American buildup of large and powerful capital ships that called into question Britain’s naval mastery. The deadlocked talks between American and British naval leaders threatened to wreck the peace negotiations and the establishment of the League of Nations. To prevent a breakdown in Anglo-American relations at Paris, Sir Robert Cecil and Colonel Edward House negotiated an agreement that pledged both countries to work towards a settlement of their naval competition. This analysis examines Lloyd George’s motivations and actions in provoking this confrontation to defeat America’s naval challenge in what would later become known as the naval battle of Paris. 

From Caxton Hall to Genoa via Fontainebleau and Cannes: David Lloyd George’s Vision of Post-War Europe (Alan Sharp)
Abstract:

Only David Lloyd George of the Big Four survived to play a major role in early post-war diplomacy, remaining as British premier until October 1922. This analysis assesses the development of his ideas and policies with particular reference to his war aims speech of 5 January 1918, his Peace Conference Fontainebleau Memorandum of 25 March 1919, and the paper handed to the French premier, Aristide Briand, at Cannes on 4 January 1922. John Maynard Keynes accused Lloyd George of being “rooted in nothing,” but Edward House’s grudging acknowledgement that “With all his faults, he is by birth, instinct and upbringing, a liberal” seems a fairer assessment. He attempted to put his ideas, based on self-determination, trade, disarmament, and a broad sense of what was just, into practice in his ambitious attempt to re-engage Germany and the Soviet Union into the mainstream of international politics at the 1922 Genoa Conference. By then his credibility with his French counterparts and Tories at home was much depleted. Furthermore, he neglected laying the tedious but necessary foundations on which to build his vision and the constraints of international and domestic politics thwarted his proposed panacea to post-war problems. 

Cultural Heritage, British Diplomacy, and the German Peace Settlement of 1919 (Erik Goldstein)
Abstract:

Restitution of cultural objects was one of the topics covered in the Treaty of Versailles and the related peace treaties. Britain made specific claims in Article 246 relating to the Koran of Caliph Othman and the Skull of Sultan Mkwawa, whilst the Foreign Office considered other claims. Britain’s policy on cultural restitution influenced growing international norms, but it should also be seen in the context of Britain’s wider diplomatic concerns, stretching from the time of Castlereagh into the post-Second World War era. 

Great Britain in French Policy Conceptions at the Paris Peace Conference, 1919 (Peter Jackson)
Abstract:

During the First World War, France and Britain forged the most intimate and comprehensive political, economic, and military alliance in history. The contributions of Britain and its Empire had been vital to France’s survival as a Great Power. A continuation of the wartime Entente was therefore pivotal to a wider strategy of embedding French security in a trans-Atlantic community of democratic Powers including the United States. But neither Britain nor the United States were ready to commit to using force to uphold the European order established at Paris. British political and policy elites reverted to pre-war cultural reflexes that prioritised Imperial considerations and assumed that France posed the chief threat to British interests 

Germany, Versailles, and the Limits of Nationhood (Conan Fischer)
Abstract:

As a defeated Great Power, Germany faced exceptional challenges after the First World War. These ranged from domestic revolution to grudging compliance with a peace treaty whose terms Germans almost universally regarded as unjust and unworkable. Franco-German relations quickly assumed particular significance in this regard as each country sought to secure its vital interests at the other’s expense; a confrontation that culminated in the Ruhr Crisis. However, there had been intermittent attempts to address security concerns through collaboration rather than confrontation and, after the Ruhr Crisis beginning in January 1923, these efforts rapidly gained momentum. The German and French foreign ministers, Gustav Stresemann and Aristide Briand, developed a trusting relationship as they strove to locate Franco-German rapprochement within the wider context of European integration. Stresemann’s death in 1929 did not stop this process that, under severe pressure from the Great Depression, finally imploded in early 1932. 

 (source: Taylor & Francis)

BOOK: Laszlo KONTLER & Mark SOMOS (eds.), Trust and Happiness in the History of European Political Thought [Studies in the History of Political Thought, Volume: 11] (Boston: Brill, 2017), ISBN 978-90-04-35367-1, € 159

(image source: Brill)

Book abstract and contributors:

The notions of happiness and trust as cements of the social fabric and political legitimacy have a long history in Western political thought. However, despite the great contemporary relevance of both subjects, and burgeoning literatures in the social sciences around them, historians and historians of thought have, with some exceptions, unduly neglected them. In Trust and Happiness in the History of European Political Thought, editors László Kontler and Mark Somos bring together twenty scholars from different generations and academic traditions to redress this lacuna by contextualising historically the discussion of these two notions from ancient Greece to Soviet Russia. Confronting this legacy and deep reservoir of thought will serve as a tool of optimising the terms of current debates. Contributors are: Erica Benner, Hans W. Blom, Niall Bond, Alberto Clerici, Cesare Cuttica, John Dunn, Ralf-Peter Fuchs, Gábor Gángó, Steven Johnstone, László Kontler, Sara Lagi, Adriana Luna-Fabritius, Adrian O’Connor, Eva Odzuck, Kálmán Pócza, Vladimir Ryzhkov, Peter Schröder, Petra Schulte, Mark Somos, Alexey Tikhomirov, Bee Yun, and Hannes Ziegler.

On the editors:

László Kontler, Ph.D. (1996) is Professor of History at Central European University (Budapest). He has published widely on intellectual history, political and historical thought, translation and reception, including Translations, Histories, Enlightenments: William Robertson in Germany, 1765-1795 (Palgrave, 2014) Mark Somos (Ph.D. Harvard, 2007; Ph.D. Lugd. Bat., 2014) is Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law (Heidelberg), Senior Visiting Research Fellow at Sussex Law School, and Co-Editor-in-Chief of Grotiana. 

 (source: Brill)

BOOK: Simone ZURBUCHEN (ed.), The Law of Nations and Natural Law 1625-1800 [Early Modern Natural Law; 1] (Leiden/Boston: Martinus Nijhoff/Brill, 2019), ISBN 978-90-04-38420-0. OPEN ACCESS, 26 SEP 2019

(image source: Brill)

Book abstract:

The Law of Nations and Natural Law 1625-1800 offers innovative studies on the development of the law of nations after the Peace of Westphalia. This period was decisive for the origin and constitution of the discipline which eventually emancipated itself from natural law and became modern international law. A specialist on the law of nations in the Swiss context and on its major figure, Emer de Vattel, Simone Zurbuchen prompted scholars to explore the law of nations in various European contexts. The volume studies little known literature related to the law of nations as an academic discipline, offers novel interpretations of classics in the field, and deconstructs ‘myths’ associated with the law of nations in the Enlightenment.

Table of contents:
Introduction 
  Simone Zurbuchen 

Part 1 
Teaching the Law of Nations 
1 Natural Law for the Nobility? The Law of Nature and Nations at the Erlangen Ritterakademie (1701–1741) 
  Katharina Beiergroesslein and Iris von Dorn 
2 Serving Danish Foreign Policy: Andreas Hojer’s De eo quod iure belli licet in minores (1735) 
  Mads Langballe Jensen 
3 The Law of Nations at the Naval Academy in Copenhagen around 1800: the Lectures of Christian Krohg 
  Thor Inge Rørvik 
4 The Law of Nations in German historia literaria and Encyclopaedias in the Eighteenth Century 
  Frank Grunert 

Part 2 
The Law of Nations from the Peace of Westphalia to the Enlightenment 
5 Pufendorf on the Law of Sociality and the Law of Nations 
  Kari Saastamoinen 
6 The International Political Thought of Johann Jacob Schmauss and Johann Gottlieb Heineccius: Natural Law, Interest, History and the Balance of Power 
  Peter Schröder 
7 Men, Monsters and the History of Mankind in Vattel’s Law of Nations 
  Pärtel Piirimäe 
8 Guarantee and Intervention: the Assessment of the Peace of Westphalia in International Law and Politics by Authors of Natural Law and of Public Law, c. 1650–1806 
  Patrick Milton 

Part 3 
The Law of Nations and the ‘École romande du droit naturel’ 
9 Born to Rule: Burlamaqui and Rousseau on the Education of Princes 
  Lisa Broussois 
10 Defining the Law of Nations: the École romande du droit naturel and the Lausanne Edition of Grotius’ De jure belli ac pacis (1751–1752) 
  Simone Zurbuchen 
11 Vattel’s Doctrine of the Customary Law of Nations between Sovereign Interests and the Principles of Natural Law 
  Francesca Iurlaro 
12 The Circulation of the École romande du droit naturel in Eighteenth-Century Italy 
  Elisabetta Fiocchi Malaspina 

(source: Brill)

CONFERENCE: The League of Nations Decentred: Law, Crises and Legacies (Melbourne, 17-19 July 2019)

(Source: LPIL.org)

Melbourne Law School’s Laureate Program in International Law is hosting an international conference on the League of Nations next month. The draft programme is now available.

Conveners: Luís Bogliolo, Kathryn Greenman, Anne Orford, and Ntina Tzouvala.

Confirmed Keynote Speakers: Professor Fleur Johns (University of New South Wales Faculty of Law); Professor Balakrishnan Rajagopal (Department of Urban Studies and Planning, Massachusetts Institute of Technology)

Almost a hundred years after the creation of the League of Nations, it is still commonly remembered as a failure in a period of chaos and disorder. Recently, however, a growing literature has begun a reappraisal of this historiography, looking at the role of the League of Nations beyond its frustrations and disillusionments in collective security. This new surge of critical studies has led to a more complex and multifaceted understanding of the League, exploring its legacies and impacts at a time of renewed economic crises and of deepening conflicting visions of international order. On the centenary of its foundation, we are taking this further by looking at the League of Nations with a view from the South. Our aim is to decentre the League and to explore competing visions of international order, law and institutions that resonate in our contemporary world.

This conference will bring together scholars working in law, history, international relations, and political theory to think critically about the League of Nations, law, institutions, practices, ideologies and technologies in relation to or with a view from the South. Themes for discussion include:

• The League of Nations and the regulation of international violence
• Sovereignty, empires, and the shifting boundaries of international authority
• Intervention (military, economic, political) in the context of the League
• Anti-colonialism, the rise of transnational social movements (socialism, feminism, national liberation)
• Competing internationalisms and visions of international order
• The rise of fascism and Nazism
• Petitioning, oversight, publicity and new arenas of international politics
• Humanitarianism, humanitarian assistance and governance
• Adjudication, arbitration, and the Permanent Court of International Justice
• The relationship between the League of Nations and contemporary or succeeding international institutions
• The Mandates system
• Indigenous peoples and the League of Nations
• Codification and the role of international law
• Major crises of the League of Nations (eg Ethiopia, Manchuria)
• Economic and social regulation and authority

Please find the draft program here.

All info can be found here

(source: ESCLH Blog)