For some time, the word 'crisis' has been dominating international political discourse. But this is nothing new. Crisis has always been part of the discipline of international law. History indeed shows that international law has developed through reacting to previous experiences of crisis, reflecting an agreement on what it takes to avoid their repetition. However, human society evolves and challenges existing rules, structures, and agreements. International law is confronted with questions as to the suitability of the existing legal framework for new stages of development. Ulrich and Ziemele here bring together an expert group of scholars to address the question of how international law confronts crises today in terms of legal thought, rule-making, and rule-application. The editors have characterized international law and crisis discourse as one of a dialectical nature, and have grouped the articles contained in the volume under four main themes: security, immunities, sustainable development, and philosophical perspectives. Each theme pertains to an area of international law which at the present moment in time is subject to notable challenges and confrontations from developments in human society. The surprising general conclusion which emerges is that, by and large, the international legal system contains concepts, principles, rules, mechanisms and formats for addressing the various developments that may prima facie seem to challenge these very same elements of the system. Their use, however, requires informed policy decisions.
Edited by George Ulrich, Professor at the Riga Graduate School of Law; Director of the European Master's Degree in Human Rights and Democratisation, Venice, Italy, and Ineta Ziemele, Professor at the Riga Graduate School of Law; President of the Constitutional Court of Latvia George Ulrich is currently Professor of Human Rights at the Riga Graduate School of Law and Programme Director of the European Master's Degree in Human Rights and Democratisation (EMA). He served as Rector at the Riga Graduate School of Law from 2009-2016 and as Secretary General of the European Inter-University Centre for Human Rights and Democratisation (EIUC) from 2003-2009. With a PhD in Philosophy from the University of Toronto, he has published extensively on topics related to the philosophy and practical implementation of human rights in an interdisciplinary perspective as well as on issues related to medical ethics, professional ethics, and the ethics of human rights. Ineta Ziemele is Professor at the Riga Graduate School of Law. She has been Judge at the Constitutional Court of Latvia since January 8, 2015, and President of the Constitutional Court of Latvia since May 8, 2017. Professor Ziemele is a former Judge of the European Court of Human Rights (2005-2014) and President of the Court Chamber (2012-2014). She is Editor-in-Chief of the Yearbook of Baltic International Law and Corresponding Member of the Latvian Academy of Science. She was awarded a doctoral degree in law from Cambridge University in 1999.
Carlos Espaliú Berdud, Dr., Associate Professor of Public International Law and European Law, Universitat Internacional de Catalunya, Barcelona Stephen Bouwhuis, Assistant Secretary, Attorney General's Department, Commonwealth of Australia James Crawford, Judge of the International Court of Justice Stefano Dominelli, Junior Researcher in International Law, University of Genoa Ilze Dubava, Lawyer, State Chancellery of the Republic of Latvia Patrycja Grzebyk, PhD, Professor at the University of Warsaw, vice-director of the Network on Humanitarian Action at the University of Warsaw Kushtrim Istrefi, Assistant Professor of Public International Law and Human Rights at Utrechct University Zeynep Kivilcim, Associate Professor, Einstein Fellow, faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin David Kosař, Director of the Judicial Studies Institute (JUSTIN) at the Law Faculty of Masaryk University, Brno Sandra Krähenmann, Thematic Legal Adviser, Gebeva Call Irena Nesterova, Researcher at the Institute of Legal Science, Faculty of Law. University of Latvia Jan Petrov, Researcher at the Judicial Studies Institute (JUSTIN) at the Law Faculty of Masaryk University Ignacio de la Rasilla, 'Han Depei Chair Professor of International Law and One Thousand talents Plan Professor, Wuhan University Institute of International Law Ilze Ruse, Associate Professor, Riga Graduate School of Law Jean-Marc Sauvé, Vice-president of the French Conseil d'État Annalisa Savaresi, Lecturer in Environmental Law, University of Stirling Fernando Dias Simões, Associate Professor, Faculty of Law of the Chinese University of Hong Kong Pavel Šturma, Professor of International Law, Charles University Faculty of Law (Prague), Member of the UN international Law Commission (Geneva) Ozlem Ulgen, Senior Lecturer in Law, School of Law, Birmingham City University George Ulrich, Professor of Human Rights at the Riga Graduate School of Law Ineta Ziemele, Professor of International Law and Human Rights at the Riga Graduate School of Law(source: OUP)
Si, ces dernières années, Leibniz a beaucoup retenu l’attention, ce qui s’est traduit tant par la poursuite de l’édition de sa correspondance, la publication de textes consacrés à certains pans de son œuvre – qu’il s’agisse, par exemple, de ses textes consacrés à l’histoire ou à la diplomatie – ou de recueils ou de monographies étudiant telle ou telle facette de son activité polyvalente, la pensée juridique de cet auteur, Stephan Meder le constate avec raison, est un peu demeurée dans l’ombre. C’est en particulier chez les juristes que Meder note un manque d’intérêt pour le polygraphe des Lumières, ce qu’il explique par plusieurs facteurs: outre le caractère interdisciplinaire de Leibniz et les liens qu’il n’a cessé de tisser entre le droit et de la philosophie, Meder voit l’une des raisons de ce manque d’intérêt dans la difficulté d’accéder aux textes originaux, que ce soit parce que tous n’ont pas été édités ou parce que maints d’entre eux sont rédigés en latin, une langue que seule une minorité maîtrise aujourd’hui.Read the full review on Francia Recensio's website.
An indispensable resource on the Treaty of Versailles, one of the most influential and controversial documents in history, this book explains how the treaty tried to solve the complex issues that emerged from the destruction of World War I. This carefully curated primary source collection includes roughly 60 documents related to the signing of the Treaty of Versailles. By collecting all of the most significant documents in one volume, it allows readers to hear the original arguments surrounding the treaty and to explore the voices of the people involved at the Paris Peace Conference. Moreover, it allows readers to engage with the documents so as to better understand the complex motivations and issues coming out of World War I and highlights the differences between the victors and identifies the problems many countries had with the treaty before it was even signed. The documents are organized in chronological order, providing a blueprint to help students to understand all of the significant events that led to the treaty, as well as the vast repercussions of the treaty itself. In addition to the Treaty of Versailles itself, documents include such significant primary sources as the Sykes-Picot Agreement, the Balfour Declaration, the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, President Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points, and Germany's response to the treaty.On the author:
Lisa L. Beckenbaugh, PhD, is assistant professor of military and security studies at Air University's Air Command and Staff College. She received her MA from St. Cloud State University and her PhD from the University of Arkansas. Dr. Beckenbaugh has taught at a variety of undergraduate and graduate civilian institutions. She also served as the interim project lead and military analyst II for the Operational Leadership Experiences Project under the aegis of the Combat Studies Institute at Fort Leavenworth and was a Post-Graduate Historical Research Fellow at the Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office.More information with the publisher.
This special issue has been motivated by the drive to contextualize the role of individuals of various backgrounds in early modern foreign relations. All contributions cover a broad geographic scope and stress the impact of non-European practices and stages for the study of early modern foreign relations. Four thematic articles follow diverse diplomatic actors, ranging from non-elite envoys to chartered companies, Catholic friars and ministers on ships, to foreign courts, and behind their desks. They provide insights into these individual actors’ functions and achievements and raise questions about social belonging and knowledge channels. The introduction below portrays the development of an actor-oriented research angle in the field of New Diplomatic History over the past decades and addresses blurring concepts and over-generalizations. It attempts to redefine the heterogeneous group of early modern diplomatic actors as products of their involvement in political and material struggles, both at home and abroad.
This article takes a micro-historical actor-centered approach to study the encounter between the officers of a Prussian East India Company Ship and local elites in 1750s Praia, Cape Verde. Combining recent advances in New Diplomatic History and in Company Studies with insights from the study of Contact Zones and transculturation, it analyzes the diplomatic strategies marginalized and hybrid players could adopt to project themselves onto the early modern global stage and locally counterbalance the hegemonic Northern European Atlantic powers. It thus proposes an alternative model of nonprofessional diplomatic interaction in the early modern period.
During the second half of the seventeenth century, there were at least three embassies between the Spaniards of Manila and the Fujian based Zheng regime. The first embassy took place in 1656 ordered by the Spanish governor in Manila. The ambassadors were two captains of the city, and its aim was to re-establish trade relations, which had been severed many months before. In response, Zheng Chenggong sent his cousin to the Philippine islands to settle several business arrangements regarding Fujianese trade. In 1662, Zheng Chenggong took the initiative of sending the Dominican Victorio Riccio, who worked as missionary in the Catholic mission at Xiamen, as emissary to the Governor of the Philippines, don Sabiniano Manrique de Lara. The third embassy took place in 1663. Thereupon, Zheng Jing, Zheng Chenggong’s successor, sent Riccio to Manila for signing a peace pact and for re-establishing trade. The three embassies were related to the Zheng’s purpose of gaining economic and political supremacy over the Philippines and the South China Seas. In all three cases, the actors, the diplomatic correspondence, the material aspects and the results differed profoundly. The article analyzes the role of individuals as intermediaries and translators while considering the social and cultural effects that these embassies had on the Sino-Spanish relations in Manila.
This article traces the multiplex relationships established between Portuguese ambassadors, consuls and extraordinary envoys in the Dutch Republic between 1640 and 1703 with the Portuguese kingdom, the king, the Portuguese “Nation” in Amsterdam and the Dutch States General. In negotiating multiple contracts and treaties regarding “world peace,” these men determined the course of history not so much because they were bound by the service of a state or a king but rather because they served a multiplicity of interests that often damaged national interest in favor of specific interest groups. The article focuses particularly on the Dutch-Portuguese clashes in Western Africa and Brazil and how their settlements impacted the Dutch-Portuguese power sharing in Asia, ultimately challenging premises of sovereignty at a global scale.
Early modern shipping under neutral flags was an activity that required many capacities, combining practices from three different fields: commerce and shipping, diplomacy, and international law. This complexity of neutral shipping is the reason why traditional diplomatic history paid limited attention to it, despite the fact that shipping and prize cases consumed much of the attention and time of diplomats of neutral nations. The neutral agents had to be able to understand, communicate and move between all three fields. This article studies seizures of Swedish neutral vessels by British privateers and the Royal Navy between 1770 and 1800, including the years of the War of American Independence and the French Revolutionary Wars. It provides examples of how exchanges between different field actors—e.g. shipmasters, ship-owners, merchants, agents, lawyers, naval officers and diplomats—were communicated and understood from the perspective of Sweden’s representatives in London.(read more here)
This volume delivers a history of internationalism at the League of Nations and the United Nations (UN), with a focus on the period from the 1920s to the 1970s, when the nation-state ascended to global hegemony as a political formation. Combining global, regional and local scaes of analysis, the essays presented here provide an interpretation of the two institutions — and their complex interrelationship — that is planetary in scale but also pioneeringly multi-local. Our central argument is that although the League and the UN shaped internationalism from the centre, they were themselves moulded just as powerfully by internationalisms that welled up globally, far beyond Geneva and New York City. The contributions are organised into three broad thematic sections, the first focused on the production of norms, the second on the development of expertise and the third on the global re-ordering of empire. By showing how the ruptures and continuities between the two international organisations have shaped the content and format of what we now refer to as ‘global governance’, the collection determinedly sets the Cold War and the emergence of the Third World into a single analytical frame alongside the crisis of empire after World War One and the geopolitics of the Great Depression. Each of these essays reveals how the League of Nations and the United Nations provided a global platform for formalising and proliferating political ideas and how the two institutions generated new spectrums of negotiation and dissidence and re-codified norms. As an ensemble, the book shows how the League of Nations and the United Nations constructed and progressively re-fashioned the basic building blocks of international society right across the twentieth century. Developing the new international history’s view of the League and UN as dynamic, complex forces, the book demonstrates that both organisations should be understood to have played an active role, not just in mediating a world of empires and then one of nation-states, but in forging the many principles and tenets by which international society is structured.On the editors:
Simon Jackson is Lecturer in Modern Middle Eastern History at the University of Birmingham, where he directs the Centre for Modern & Contemporary History. He is completing a book on the political economy of French empire in Syria and Lebanon after World War One, and researching another, on the origins of the global food production system in late colonial rule. His work has appeared in Humanity, Monde(s) and the Arab Studies Journal. Alanna O’Malley is Assistant Professor of History & International Relations at Leiden University. She is the author of The Diplomacy of Decolonisation, America, Britain and the United Nations during the Congo crisis 1960-64, which was published by Manchester University Press in 2018.She has been a Kathleen Fitzpatrick Visiting Fellow at the University of Sydney and a Fulbright Scholar at the Department of History at George Washington University. She is currently working on a new project, which examines the impact of the Global South on the United Nations 1955-1981.
In January 1918 – the war had not ended yet – the Vienna paper »Der Morgen« published a cartoon that showed the »Babylonian peace tower«: on it and around it a plethora of political leaders, citizens, slogans, and banners compete for attention. They demand, for example, »democracy«, »freedom of the seas«, and in the background, we can spot a campaigner calling for »Africa to the Africans«. Readers can find this cartoon and an interpretation of it in Jörn Leonhard’s awe-inspiring monumental history of peace making after the First World War (p. 133).Read more on Francia Recensio's website.
A fundamental truth about British power in the nineteenth century and beyond was that Britain was a global power. Her international position rested on her global economic, naval and political presence, and her foreign policy operated on a global scale. This volume throws into sharp relief the material elements of British power, but also its less tangible components, from Britain's global network of naval bases to the vast range of intersecting commercial, financial and intelligence relationships, which reinforced the country's political power. Leading historians reshape the scholarly debate surrounding the nature of British global power at a crucial period of transformation in international politics, and in so doing they deepen our understanding of the global nature of British power, the shifts in the international landscape from the high Victorian period to the 1960s, and the changing nature of the British state in this period.On the editor:
T. G. Otte is Professor of Diplomatic History at the University of East Anglia. Among his latest books are July Crisis: The World's Descent into War, Summer 1914 (2014), The Age of Anniversaries: The Cult of Commemoration, 1895–1925 (ed., 2018) and Statesman of Europe: A Life of Sir Edward Grey (forthcoming).(source: CUP)
Mark Somos won a Heisenberg position. The MPIL will host a five-year Heisenberg project starting on 1st October. The project seeks to uncover an unknown aspect of the history of international law by examining all surviving copies of the first ten editions of Hugo Grotius’ seminal De iure belli ac pacis. The project will map their dissemination around the world, and will analyse all hand-written annotations left by four centuries of readers, including major figures in the history of international law.(source: MPIL)
Mit diesem Buch wird erstmals ein umfassendes und systematisches Referenzwerk zu Christian Wolff vorgelegt, das alle wichtigen Aspekte zu Leben und Werk des Philosophen behandelt. Das Handbuch ist von international renommierten Experten verfasst und behandelt die Biographie, das philosophische und naturwissenschaftlich-mathematische Werk sowie die philosophiegeschichtliche Rolle von Christian Wolff.On the editors:
Prof. em. Dr. Robert Theis lehrte Philosophie an der Universität Luxemburg. PD Dr. Alexander Aichele lehrt Philosophie an der Universität Halle.Read more on SpringerLink.
The association of criminal and international law within a German historical context would normally only seem to concern post-1945 law and the path from the Nürnberg trial to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.1 But the point of departure of this study is different and comes at the end of the 18th century: it is the matter of German professors who taught both criminal law (Strafrecht) and the law of nations (Völkerrecht). While Franz von Liszt (1851–1919) is certainly the best known both inside and outside Germany, Ernst-Ferdinand Klein (1744–1810), August Wilhelm Heffter (1796–1880), Franz von Holtzendorff (1829–1899) and, for the lesser part of their careers, Hugo Hälschner (1817–1889), Richard Schmidt (1862–1944), Ernst Beling (1866–1932), Carl Schmitt (1888–1985) and Georg Dahm (1904–1963) all taught both subjects. Moreover, other German professors and philosophers have written about criminal and international law, something rather uncommon in other countries. This surprising association between two subjects that are now separated among different specialists is something particular to Germany, and this phenomenon is likely to be linked with the blossoming of the German-speaking literature about norms and sanctions, including the Vienna School of Law. Whereas criminal law appeared as the model of sanctioned norms, dependent on efficient penalties, the law of nations was for a long time controversial because its norms seemed unsanctioned or imperfectly sanctioned through war. War itself triggered discussions about a period in which some murders – those of the enemies – were licit, whereas other forms of behaviour toward adversaries were considered crimes against the law of nations.Read the full article (open access) on rechtsgeschichte's website.
International Law in the Long Nineteenth Century gathers ten studies that reflect the ever-growing variety of themes and approaches that scholars from different disciplines bring to the historiography of international law in the period. Three themes are explored: ‘international law and revolutions’ which reappraises the revolutionary period as crucial to understanding the dynamics of international order and law in the nineteenth century. In ‘law and empire’, the traditional subject of nineteenth-century imperialism is tackled from the perspective of both theory and practice. Finally, ‘the rise of modern international law’, covers less familiar aspects of the formation of modern international law as a self-standing discipline.On the contibutors:
Contributors are: Camilla Boisen, Raphaël Cahen, James Crawford, Ana Delic, Frederik Dhondt, Andrew Fitzmaurice, Vincent Genin, Viktorija Jakjimovska, Stefan Kroll, Randall Lesaffer, and Inge Van Hulle.DOI 10.1163/9789004412088.
In May 2018 I was privileged to conduct two lengthy interviews with Judge Crawford in his chambers at the Peace Palace in The Hague. The audio and written transcripts of these are available on the Eminent Scholars Archive (ESA) website[1]. His distinctive outlook on international law gives rise to what I have called a Crawfordian Vision of International Law, and I have used his interviews as a basis for identifying some of its characteristics. (Quotations in italics are referred to Question numbers in his interview transcripts).Read more here.