The Gentle Civilizer of Nations: The Rise and Fall of International Law 1870–1960: 14 (Hersch Lauterpacht Memorial Lectures, Series Number 14)
Cambridge University Press, 11/29/2001
EAN 9780521623117, ISBN10: 0521623111
Hardcover, 584 pages, 22.9 x 15.2 x 3.7 cm
Language: English
Originally published in English
International law was born from the impulse to 'civilize' late nineteenth-century attitudes towards race and society, argues Martti Koskenniemi in this extensive study of the rise and fall of modern international law. In a work of wide-ranging intellectual scope, now available for the first time in paperback, Koskenniemi traces the emergence of a liberal sensibility relating to international matters in the late nineteenth century, and its subsequent decline after the Second World War. He combines legal analysis, historical and political critique and semi-biographical studies of key figures (including Hans Kelsen, Hersch Lauterpacht, Carl Schmitt and Hans Morgenthau); he also considers the role of crucial institutions (the Institut de droit international, the League of Nations). His discussion of legal and political realism at American law schools ends in a critique of post-1960 'instrumentalism'. This book provides a unique reflection on the possibility of critical international law today.
Introduction
1. 'The legal conscience of the civilized world'
2. Sovereignty
a gift of civilization
3. International law as philosophy
Germany 1871–1933
4. International law as sociology
French 'solidarism' 1871-1950
5. Lauterpacht
the Victorian tradition in international law
6. Out of Europe
Carl Schmitt, Hans Morgenthau and the turn to 'international relations'
Epilogue.