CHAPTER: "The Historiography of International Law on the European Continent", in: R. LESAFFER & A. PETERS (eds.), Volume 1: The Historiography of International Law [The Cambridge History of International Law, ed. R. LESAFFER] (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, May 2024, forthcoming), pp. 244-272

(image source: CUP)

Cambridge University Press will publish thirteen volumes in the series The Cambridge History of International Law. The first volume (The Historiography of International Law, eds. Randall Lesaffer & Anne Peters) is announced for May 2024. Your humble servant authored the chapter "The Historiography of International Law on the European Continent".

Abstract:

The art and craft of writing history are inherently linked with international-law scholarship. Finding precedents and doctrinal authority and reading the political compromises underpinning institutions are typical purposes. Lawyers, academics and political actors have all been receptive to a historical narrative. The structure and arguments used in international law are closely linked with Western legal culture and the reception of Roman law. This setting is at the same time broader and more restrictive than that of professional academic historians, who developed theoretical standards to distinguish their thought-through production (historia rerum gestarum) from the rendering of brute facts (res gestae) or from a purely literary product. This chapter starts with German and French eighteenth-century visions of the law of nations, before passing to the nineteenth-century passion for history. The ‘men’ of 1873 (Institute of International Law) and twentieth-century evolutions led to the recent boom in scholarship. The ‘turn to history’ in international law not only continues past traditions, but also reflects broader transformations in the social sciences and humanities. Conversely, we witness a contemporary ‘turn to law’ in intellectual, political, cultural and social history, which leads to a stimulating process of cross-fertilisation.

Contributors: 

Randall Lesaffer, Anne Peters, Nehal Bhuta, Mark Somos, Giovanni Mantilla, Carsten-Andreas Schulz, Christopher Casey, Keun-Gwan Lee, Inge Van Hulle, Frederik Dhondt, Lauri Mälksoo, David Armitage, Ignacio de la Rasilla, John Fabian Witt, Arnulf Becker Lorca

More information with the publisher.
Coordinates for vol. 1: ISBN 9781108767651, DOI 10.1017/9781108767651.

[update: Print publication date 21.XI.2024]