ESIL Interest Group History of International Law

ESIL Interest Group History of International Law

Monday, 13 January 2025

BOOK: Alberto RINALDI, "Ghosts of International Law: The Figure of the Foreign Fighter in a Cultural Perspective" (Cambridge Studies in International and Comparative Law, CUP, 2024)

Source: CUP


Description:

Heroes and villains, idealists and mercenaries, freedom fighters and religious fanatics. Foreign fighters tend to defy easy classification. Good and bad images of the foreign combatant epitomize different conceptions of freedom and are used to characterize the rightness or wrongness of this actor in civil wars. The book traces the history of these figures and their afterlife. It does so through an interdisciplinary methodology employing law, history, and psychoanalytical theory, showing how different images of the foreign combatant are utilized to proscribe or endorse foreign fighters in different historical moments. By linking the Spanish, Angolan, and Syrian civil wars, the book demonstrates how these figures function as a precedent for later periods and how their heritage keeps haunting the imaginary of legal actors in the present.
  • Provides an interdisciplinary account of international law-making, with specific reference to violent non-state actors
  • Introduces the theory step-by-step using ordinary-language explanations and examples throughout
  • Portrays a different story of foreign volunteering and offers a window on the constitutive role of cultural archetypes in international law

Table of Contents:

Introduction
1. The Spanish Civil war and the legacy of Nineteenth Century adventurers
2. The return of the mercenaries: The 1976 Luanda trial in context
3. Enemies of humanity or freedom fighters? The Jihadist combatant in the Syrian Civil war
Back to the Future
Bibliography
Index.

Author

Alberto Rinaldi, Lunds Universitet, Sweden
Alberto Rinaldi has worked for academic and non-academic institutions in Egypt, France, and currently Sweden. His research focuses on interdisciplinary approaches to law and the humanities, including law and emotions, literature, cinema, and pop culture.

Thursday, 9 January 2025

BOOK: Alan Tzvika NISSEL, "Merchants of Legalism: A History of State Responsibility (1870–1960)" (Cambridge Studies in International and Comparative Law, CUP, 2024)

Source: CUP

Description:
Since the United Nations finalised its Draft Articles on the Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts in 2001, most of the attention has been on the codification history of the topic. Alan Nissel widens the historic lens to include the pre-United Nations origins, offering the first extensive study on the American contribution to the modern law of state responsibility. The book examines the recurring narrative of lawyers using international law to suit the particular needs of their clients in three key contexts: the US turn to international arbitration practice in the New World, the German theorisation of public law in the setting of its national unification, and the multilateral effort to codify international law within world bodies. This expanded historical framework not only traces the pre-institutional origins of the code, but also highlights the duality of State responsibility doctrines and the political environments from which they emerged.
  • Presents an intense study on the history of state responsibility
  • Demonstrates the lasting influence of the United States and Latin America on the contemporary international law of investment protection
  • Presents a novel argument on the Monroe Doctrine and its impact on international litigation
Table of Contents:

Acknowledgements
1. The responsibilities of States in International law: an overview
2. The US turn to the technique of international arbitration
3. The creation of State responsibility in the New World
4. International responsibility as German philosophy
5. State responsibility as World order
Epilogue: from State responsibility to the responsibility of States
Bibliography
Index.

Author:
Alan Tzvika Nissel is an Assistant Professor at the Pepperdine Caruso School of Law where he teaches international and property law-related courses. He is also CEO of Wilshire Skyline, a Los Angeles-based asset management company. Dr. Nissel received his LL.D. in international law from Helsinki University under the supervision of Martti Koskenniemi.

More info with CUP.

Tuesday, 7 January 2025

BOOK: Mark SOMOS et al, "The Unseen History of International Law: A Census Bibliography of Hugo Grotius' De Jure Belli Ac Pacis (1625-1650 Editions), (The History and Theory of International Law, OUP, 2025)

Source: OUP

Description:
  • The first global census bibliography of Hugo Grotius' De iure belli ac pacis
  • Describes nearly one thousand surviving copies of the first nine editions of De iure belli ac pacis published between 1625 and 1650
  • Examines annotations left by four centuries of readers
  • Draws from previously unknown primary evidence to revise and expand our understanding of international law
The Unseen History of International Law locates and describes almost one thousand surviving copies of the first nine editions of Hugo Grotius' De iure belli ac pacis (IBP) published between 1625 and 1650. Meticulously reconstructing the publishing history of these first nine editions and cataloguing copies across hundreds of collections, The Unseen History provides fundamental data for reconstructing the impact of IBP across time and space. It also examines annotations that thousands of owners and readers have left in IBP copies over four centuries, offering original insights into the development of international law.

Grotius' De iure belli ac pacis has been commonly regarded as the foundation of modern international law since its first appearance in 1625. Most major international law scholars have engaged with IBP, often owning and richly annotating their own copies. At key moments - including the demise of the Holy Roman Empire, the fall of Napoleon, and the end of both world wars - IBP was reissued with new commentaries by multinational projects devoted to restarting the international order. Despite the enormous literature on IBP's reception and influence, we cannot fully understand its impact without uncovering the history of IBP as a physical object, with hundreds of thousands of unpublished annotations arguing or agreeing with the text, updating and adapting its contents.

Approaching Grotius' seminal work as a physical vehicle of the author's, the publishers', owners', and readers' engagement, The Unseen History radically expands and revises our understanding not only of IBP, but also of the academic discipline and lived practice of modern international law over the last four centuries. In addition to delving into the first nine editions' printing history, descriptive bibliography, and both Grotius' and the publishers' marketing and donation strategies, the book explores Grotius' subsequent impact on pro-slavery and abolitionist litigation as a case study of how the census' original findings can be applied to specific areas of reception.


Table of Contents:



1:General Introduction
PART ONE: WRITING AND PRINTING IBP
2:1625. States and New Findings
3:1626. Pirated but Improved
4:1631. Large-Format and Long-Prepared
5:1632. The Janssonius Piracy
6:1632. The Blaeu Reprisal
7:1642. Annotata: Philemon and Posterity
8:1646. The First Posthumous Edition
9:1647. Re-issuing the 1631 Edition
10:1650. After Westphalia
PART TWO: OWNERS AND READERS OF THE IBP
11:Ownership Patterns of the 1625 IBP
12:Ownership Patterns of the 1626 IBP
13:Ownership Patterns of the 1631 IBP
14:Ownership Patterns of the 1632 Janssonius IBP
15:Ownership Patterns of the 1632 Blaeu IBP
16:Ownership Patterns of the 1642 IBP
17:Ownership Patterns of the 1646 IBP
18:Ownership Patterns of the 1647 IBP
19:Ownership Patterns of the 1650 IBP
20:Patterns in the 1625-1650 Editions
21:IBP and Censorship
22:Testing the Census: The Case of Slavery
23:Conclusion
PART THREE: THE CATALOGUE
24:The 1625 IBP Copies
25:The 1626 IBP Copies
26:The 1631 IBP Copies
27:The 1632 Janssonius IBP Copies
28:The 1632 Blaeu IBP Copies
29:The IBP 1642 IBP Copies
30:The 1646 IBP Copies
31:The 1647 IBP Copies
32:The 1650 IBP Copies
Appendix 1: Printer's Corrections in the 1631 IBP
Appendix 2: List of Co-Bound Copies by Edition
Bibliography


Authors:


Mark Somos is Heisenberg Professor at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law, serving as Principal Investigator of the Grotius Census Project. He holds a PhD in Political Science from Harvard and a PhD in Law from Leiden. As a scholar, Mark taught at Sussex, Harvard, Yale, and Tufts universities. He has published six books and eighty articles and co-edits Grotiana and the book series History of European Political and Constitutional Thought. As a lawyer, Mark advises States, individuals, and NGOs, has served as Counsel in several ICJ cases, and has successfully represented victims in front of multiple UN Special Procedures.

Matthew Cleary is a Senior Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law where he studies legal history, having received his PhD in Law at Edinburgh Law School in 2023 on late medieval testamentary succession law. Prior to this, he studied in Canada, receiving a BA Specialization Honours in History from Laurentian University, and an MA in History from the University of Western Ontario. He has authored (or co-authored) multiple articles and book chapters, which have appeared in Forum Historiae Iuris, Grotiana, and Routledge, with several forthcoming publications.

Pablo Dufour is a research assistant at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law. He is currently pursuing an MSc in International Relations at the London School of Economics. He holds a BA from the University of Heidelberg, having spent the final year of his undergraduate studies at Sciences Po Paris.

Edward Jones Corredera is a Senior Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law, and is Assistant Lecturer at the Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia. He received his PhD in History from the University of Cambridge in 2019. His articles have appeared in the English Historical Review, the Journal of Early Modern History, and Global Intellectual History. He has been a Fellow at the Huntington Library and the Residencia de Estudiantes, and is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.

Emanuele Salerno is Senior Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law. He holds a PhD in Political Science from the University of Pisa and his current research is centred on theoretical and practical tools for supporting international peace and security in a historical comparative framework. Before joining the MPIL, he has contributed to the Italian research units of the international projects Natural Law 1625-1850 and Serica. He has published on the legal-political culture of the ruling class and cases of pragmatization of the law of nature and nations in eighteenth-century Tuscany.

Thursday, 5 December 2024

BOOK: Aurora ALMADA DE SANTOS & Yvette SANTOS (eds.), "The League of Nations Experience: Overlapping Readings" (De Gruyter, 2025)

Source: De Gruyter

Description:
As an early experiment in the creation of multilateral institutions, the League of Nations was entrusted by its members to maintain peace but also to be a standard-maker and a manager of contemporary problems and challenges requiring a global response. Nevertheless, after a while it became clear that its performance in addressing major conflicts did not live up to the expectations of guarantying collective security. In the functional areas, although the organization created precedents, it also showed limitations. Due to its complexity, increasingly the League of Nations has been studied not only from an institutional perspective but also from a more multidimensional and comparative point of view that allows to consider the presence and role of the organization in various scales and spaces, besides its relationship with a diversity of actors and themes. The League of Nations Experience: Overlapping Readings offers a multitude of interpretations, evincing some of the promising avenues through which the League of Nations continues to inspire academic research.

Table of Contents:

Introduction – The League of Nations experience: Overlapping readings
Aurora Almada e Santos

A contentious idea

The Institut de Droit International’s response to the birth of the League of Nations
Philippe Rygiel
25

The League of Nations or European federation: The Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom’s decade of debate over a “United States of Europe,” 1923–1933
Rebecca Shriver
43

Hopes and aspirations

Korea and the League of Nations: from Versailles to the Manchurian Crisis, 1919–1933
Dolf-Alexander Neuhaus
67

The accession of British colonies to the League of Nations and the “Third” British Empire
Thomas Gidney
95

The membership of the Executive Council: Portugal’s highest aspiration in the League of Nations
Jesús Bermejo Roldán and Quintino Lopes
123

Decentering the view

Plowshares into swords: The League of Nations as a weapon of internationalist war
David Ekbladh
145

Survived on sufferance: Social policy, the ILO and the new “World Organisation,” 1941–1945
Geert Van Goethem
171

A plethora of varied initiatives

The Information Section of the League of Nations: An experiment in organising communication in international relations
Arne L. Gellrich and Erik Koenen
199

The League and the world: how and why the League of Nations became the centre of world economic statistics
Martin Bemmann
223

The fight against the trafficking of women and minors before and within the League of Nations: A path to legitimacy for European voluntary associations
Sara Ercolani
249

Abstracts
275

List of contributors
279

Index
285

Source: De Gruyter


Wednesday, 4 December 2024

BOOK: Randall LESAFFER & Anne PETERS, "The Cambridge History of International Law" (Volume I, 2024, Cambridge University Press)

Source: CUP

Description:


Volume I of The Cambridge History of International Law introduces the historiography of international law as a field of scholarship. After a general introduction to the purposes and design of the series, Part 1 of this volume highlights the diversity of the field in terms of methodologies, disciplinary approaches, and perspectives that have informed both older and newer historiographies in the recent three decades of its rapid expansion. Part 2 surveys the history of international legal history writing from different regions of the world, spanning roughly the past two centuries. The book therefore offers the most complete treatment of the historical development and current state of international law history writing, using both a global and an interdisciplinary perspectives.
  • Introduces The Cambridge History of International Law series
  • Offers a wide ranging survey of the historiography of international law from a global perspective
  • Addresses the contributions of various disciplines – law, history, political thought, economics – and regional traditions to the historiography of international law

Table of Contents:
1. Scope, scale and humility in the history of international law 
Randall Lesaffer
Part I. The Historiography of International Law: Methods and Approaches 
Randall Lesaffer and Anne Peters
2. A thousand flowers blooming, or the desert of the real? International Law and its many problems of history 
Nehal Bhuta
3. Political thought and the historiography of international law 
Mark Somos
4. The turn to the history of international law in the discipline of international relations 
Giovanni Mantilla and Carsten-Andreas Schulz
5. Economic history and international law: a peculiar absence 
Christopher Casey
Part II. The Historiography of International Law: Regional Traditions 
Randall Lesaffer and Anne Peters
6. The historiography of international law in East Asia 
Keun-Gwan Lee
7. The historiography of international law in sub-Saharan Africa
Inge Van Hulle
8. The historiography of international law on the European continent 
Frederik Dhondt
9. The historiography of international law in Russia and its successor states 
Lauri Mälksoo
10. 'The most neglected province': British historiography of international law 
David Armitage and Ignacio de la Rasilla
11. The view from the Leviathan: history of international law in the hegemon 
John Fabian Witt
12. Using history in Latin America 
Arnulf Becker Lorca

More info with CUP.

Wednesday, 27 November 2024

BOOK: Thomas BOTTELIER & Jan STÖCKMANN, "Instruments of international order: Internationalism and diplomacy, 1900–50" (Manchester University Press, 2024)

Description:
This book explores a set of diplomatic practices and principles that shaped international politics during the first half of the twentieth century. By considering these instruments as historical constructions serving various political ends, the chapters show how internationalists interacted with traditional diplomatic actors, thus blending new and old forms of diplomacy. To illustrate this process, the authors draw on a range of new archival evidence and consider understudied actors and venues, from Ethiopian diplomats to the League of Nations Assembly. What connects them is their attention to the ways in which internationalists sought to solve international problems at an international level by infiltrating established institutions at the highest level of political decision-making.

Table of Contents:

Introduction
By: Thomas W. Bottelier and Jan Stöckmann
Pages: 1–16

Chapter 1: Becoming national
Self-determination as a tool in international politics
By: Georgios Giannakopoulos
Pages: 17–34

Chapter 2: The League of Nations and the new uses of sovereignty
By: Lukas Schemper
Pages: 35–54

Chapter 3: Ascertaining the truth in Albania
Inquiry as a League of Nations instrument of international order
By: Quincy R. Cloet
Pages: 55–80

Chapter 4: The chemical weapons discourse as an instrument of international order
The Second Italo-Ethiopian War
By: Anneleen van der Meer
Pages: 81–103

Chapter 5: ‘Weapons misused by barbarous races'
Disarmament, imperialism and race in the interwar period
By: Daniel Stahl
Pages: 104–126

Chapter 6: Colonial policy and international control
The American Philippines and multilateral drug treaties, 1909–31
By: Eva Ward
Pages: 127–151

Chapter 7: In the eyes of the world
Media oversight and diplomatic practices at the League of Nations Assembly
By: Robert Laker
Pages: 152–176

Chapter 8: The League of Nations and the advisory opinion of the Permanent Court of International Justice as ‘preventive adjudication’?
By: Gabriela A. Frei
Pages: 177–197

Chapter 9: With or without the metropole
Deferred sovereignty as instrument of racial governance
By: Pablo de Orellana
Pages: 198–226

Index
Pages: 227–232

More info with manchesterhive.

BOOK: Stefanie GÄNGER & Jürgen OSTERHAMMEL (eds.), "Rethinking Global History" (CUP, 2024)

Source: CUP


Description:

Despite three decades of rapid expansion and public success, global history's theoretical and methodological foundations remain under-conceptualised, even to those using them. In this collection of essays, leading historians provide a reassessment of global history's most common analytical instruments, metaphors and conceptual foundations. Rethinking Global History prompts historians to pause and think about the methodology and premises underpinning their work. The volume reflects on the structure and direction of history, its relation to our present and the ways in which historians should best explain, contextualise and represent events and circumstances in the past. In chapters on fundamental concepts such as scale, comparison, temporality and teleology, this collection will guide readers to assess the extant literature critically and write theoretically informed global histories. Taken together, these essays provide a unique and much-needed assessment of the implications of history going global. This title is also available as open access on Cambridge Core.

Reviews

‘In this book a group of well-known practitioners provide a multifaceted analysis of the concepts, methods, and issues that will define future scholarship in Global History. If this branch of history is here to stay, then historians should embrace the full conceptual rearmament here discussed to write histories worthy of the problems affecting today's world.’Giorgio Riello, European University Institute and the University of Warwick

‘What a timely intervention! As global history is coming of age, and as the world around us changes, our methods and approaches will have to develop as well. As the talk of de-globalization proliferates, Jürgen Osterhammel and Stefanie Gänger have assembled a group of first-class historians to rethink global history for our times. Fresh, insightful, stimulating.’Sebastian Conrad, Professor of Global History, Freie Universität Berlin

Table of Contents:

Introduction
pp 1-20
Rethinking History, Globally
By Stefanie Gänger, Jürgen Osterhammel

Part I - Forms of Inquiry and Argumentation
pp 21-114

1 - Explanation
pp 23-46
The Limits of Narrativism in Global History
By Jürgen Osterhammel

Select 2 - Comparison
2 - Comparison
pp 47-69
Its Use and Misuse in Social and Economic History
By Alessandro Stanziani

3 - Time
pp 70-91
Temporality in Global History
By Christina Brauner

4 - Quantification
pp 92-114
Measuring Connections and Comparative Development in Global History
By Pim de Zwart

Part II - Concepts and Metaphors
pp 115-182

5 - The Global and the Earthy
pp 117-138
Taking the Planet Seriously as a Global Historian
By Sujit Sivasundaram

6 - Openness and Closure
pp 139-160
Spheres and Other Metaphors of Boundedness in Global History
By Valeska Huber

7 - Scales
pp 161-182
From Shipworms to the Globe and Back
By Dániel Margócsy

Part III - Configurations and Telos
pp 183-273

8 - Tacit Directionality
pp 185-209
Processes, Teleology and Contingency in Global History*
By Jan C. Jansen

Select 9 - Distance
9 - Distance
pp 210-234
A Problem in Global History
By Jeremy Adelman

10 - Materiality
pp 235-253
Global History and the Material World*
By Stefanie Gänger

11 - Centrisms
pp 254-273
Questions of Privilege and Perspective in Global Historical Scholarship
By Dominic Sachsenmaier

More info with CUP.