International Law and Empire: Historical Explorations

by Martti Koskenniemi, Walter Rech, Manuel Jimenez Fonseca

Overview

In times in which global governance in its various forms, such as human rights, international trade law, and development projects, is increasingly promoted by transnational economic actors and international institutions that seem to be detached from democratic processes of legitimation, the question of the relationship between international law and empire is as topical as ever. By examining this relationship in historical contexts from early modernity to the present, this volume aims to deepen current understandings of the way international legal institutions, practices, and narratives have shaped specifically imperial ideas about and structures of world governance.

As it explores fundamental ways in which international legal discourses have operated in colonial as well as European contexts, the book enters a heated debate on the involvement of the modern law of nations in imperial projects. Each of the chapters contributes to this emerging body of scholarship by drawing out the complexity and ambivalence of the relationship between international law and empire. They expand on the critique of western imperialism while acknowledging the nuances and ambiguities of international legal discourse and, in some cases, the possibility of counter-hegemonic claims being articulated through the language of international law. Importantly, as the book suggests that international legal argument may sometimes be used to counter imperial enterprises, it maintains that international law can barely escape the Eurocentric framework within which the progressive aspirations of internationalism were conceived

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780198795575
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	03/05/2017
Series:	The History and Theory of International Law
Pages:	412
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.40(d)

About the Author

Martti Koskenniemi, Academy Professor and Director, Erik Castren Institute of International Law and Human Rights at the University of Helsinki,Walter Rech, Postdoctoral Researcher, Erik Castren Institute of International Law and Human Rights at the University of Helsinki,Manuel Jimenez Fonseca, Doctoral Researcher, Erik Castren Institute of International Law and Human Rights at the University of Helsinki

Martti Koskenniemi is Academy Professor and Director of the Erik Castren Institute of International Law and Human Rights at the University of Helsinki, a Professorial Fellow at Melbourne Law School, and Centennial Professor at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He has held visiting professorships at New York University, the University of Cambridge, the University of Utrecht, Columbia University, the University of Sao Paulo, the University of Toronto, and the Universities of Paris I, II, X and XVI. He was a member of the Finnish diplomatic service from 1978 to 1994 and of the International Law Commission (UN) from 2002 to 2006. His publications include From Apology to Utopia: The Structure of International Legal Argument (1989), The Gentle Civilizer of Nations: The Rise and Fall of International Law 1870-1960 (2001), The Politics of International Law (2011), and The Cambridge Companion to International Law (2012, co-edited with Professor James Crawford).

Walter Rech is a postdoctoral researcher at the Erik Castren Institute of International Law and Human Rights, University of Helsinki. His research interests are located in the history and theory of international law and international politics. His publications include Enemies of Mankind: Vattel's Theory of Collective Security ( 2013).

Manuel Jimenez Fonseca is a doctoral researcher at the Erik Castren Institute of International Law and Human Rights, University of Helsinki. His research interests include the historical relationship between international law and nature, development, and social movements. His publications include 'The Colonization of American Nature and the Early Developments of International Law' 12 Journal of the History of International Law (2010) 189.

Table of Contents

Introduction, Martti KoskenniemiPart I: Epistemologies of Empire and International Law1. Provincializing Grotius: International Law and Empire in a Seventeenth-Century Malay Mirror, Arthur Weststeijn2. Indirect Hegemonies in International Legal Relations: The Debate of Religious Tolerance in Early Republican China, Stefan Kroll3. International Law, Empire, and the Relative Indeterminacy of Narrative, Walter RechPart II: Legal Discourses of Empire4. The Concepts of Universal Monarchy and Balance of Power in the First Half of the Seventeenth Century-a Case Study, Peter Schroder5. Between Faith and Empire: The Justification of the Spanish Intervention in the French Wars of Religion in the 1590s, Randall Lesaffer6. Jus gentium and the Transformation of Latin American Nature: One More Reading of Vitoria?, Manuel Jimenez Fonseca7. Cerberus: The State, the Empire, and the Company as Subjects of International Law in Grotius and the Peace of Westphalia, Jose-Manuel Barreto8. Revolution, Empire, and Utopia: Tocqueville and the Intellectual Background of International Law, Julie SaadaPart III: Managing Empire: Imperial Administration and Diplomacy9. Towards the Empire of a 'Civilizing Nation': The French Revolution and its Impact on Relations with the Ottoman Regencies in the Maghreb, Christian Windler10. A Comporting Sovereign, Tribes, and the Ordering of Imperial Authority in Colonial Upper Canada of the 1830s, PG McHugh11. Territory, Sovereignty, and the Construction of the Colonial Space, Luigi NuzzoPart IV: A Legal Critique of Empire?12. An Anti-Imperialist Universalism? Jus Cogens and the Politics of International Law, Umut Ozsu13. Drift towards an Empire? The Trajectory of American Reformers in the Cold War, Hatsue Shinohara14. Imperium sine fine: Carneades, the Splendid Vice of Glory, and the Justice of Empire, Benjamin Straumann15. Scepticism of the Civilizing Mission in International Law, Andrew Fitzmaurice