Medieval International Law (International Law)

Introduction

The object of study of medieval international law has traditionally been coincidental with the examination of the particular intellectual and legal-political western European genealogy. This classical historiographical perspective is embodied by the Encyclopedia Britannica, for which “international law is the product of a process initiated in the Western world,” the first stage of which was “the disintegration of the medieval European community into a European society.” Such a Western genealogy of medieval international law is often seen to culminate in either 1625, with the publication of Grotius’s De Jure Belli ac Pacis, or in 1648, with the Peace of Westphalia, understood as the etiological mythical birthdate of the modern European state system within a partially secularized post-imperial sovereignty-based jus publicum europaeum. Thus framed, the field of study traditionally covered by medieval international law begins with the fall of the Roman Empire, traverses the theocratical monarchy of the Carolingian period and the early development of European feudal institutions to culminate after, respectively, the Gregorian Reformation (1075) and the rediscovery of the Justinian Digest in the late 11th century, with the examination of the effects that the emergence of the twin branches of study of canon law and jus civile (with its three conceptions of jus gentium) had in shaping a late medieval sovereignty of concurrent legitimate authorities within the conceptual unity provided by an European Respublica Christiana. However, the reiterative and overlapping focus of most available scholarship on such a Western prehistory for a modern state-centric and Eurocentric international legal system, which was partly influenced in its development by natural law thought under the hybridized influence of both Christian and classical Stoic moral doctrine and Roman legal foundations, has historically marginalized and neglected the global history of international law in the Middle Ages. Therefore, according to a universal perspective, which is undergirded by the socio-legal understanding ubi societas inter potestates, ibi ius gentium, the field of study of medieval international law extends well far beyond western Europe. Indeed, against the historically untenable pretension that international law is the exclusive historical offspring of a medieval Christian European civilization, the proper object of study of medieval international law is that of examining the existence of a sheer diversity of legal orders between independent political entities in different regions and ages, as well as the examination of their cross-cultural mutual influences during what still remains a largely unexplored thousand years-long period for the history of international law.

General Overviews

Two contemporary parallel lines of international scholarship have spurred a new interest on medieval international law as an intellectual space before the constitution of the traditional attributes of state sovereignty, which were mythically enshrined for western Europe in the Peace of Westphalia. Firstly, a neo-medievalist international legal pull has followed in the wake of the decline ensued following the decline or relative demise of the sovereign state as the traditional main actor and the sole legal subject of international law and relations. Secondly, the study of medieval international law has benefited from postcolonial approaches in international law which, since the 1960s, have notably attempted to open up the classic Eurocentric Western historiography of international law to the precolonial experiences of non-European peoples and regions. In the late post–Cold War era of multicultural globalization and rising multipolarity, both Eurocentric and state-centric prejudices, which had weighed heavily on the study of the history of international law before the genesis of the early modern European state system, are being, even if slowly, dispelled. However, the treatment of medieval international law in general overviews of the history of international law remains considerably less developed than that dispensed to early modern scholarship of international law and subsequent periods. To this day, studies on medieval international law for Europe, and much more acutely so for other regions of the world, remain the exclusive domain of rare erudite specialization or occasional amateurish excursus. Moreover, this lack of scholarly treatment is compounded by the fact that western European medieval international law makes for the lion’s share of scholarship in this area, and therefore very little can still be said about general overviews emerging from non-Eurocentric perspectives. An accessible background perspective on European medieval legal thought can be found in Canning 2005. Lesaffer 2009, in its turn, provides a highly enjoyable perspective of European legal history that spans three millennia. On the other hand, the works of the Italian scholar Paradisi, including Paradisi 1974, feature among the most well-regarded pioneering contributions to the study of the history of international law during the Middle Ages. The important role of canon law in the European tradition of international law receives an extensive treatment in Muldoon 1998. An interesting contribution on the role of medieval political thought in the origins of international law is provided in Spanish by Weckmann 1993. The referential character of Grewe 2000 makes this work a must in any bibliography of medieval international law. Finally, Haggenmacher 1983 provides one of most authoritative works on the history of just war in the European Middle Ages. See also Schmitt 2003.

Canning, Joseph. History of Medieval Political Thought, 300–1450. London and New York: Routledge, 2005.
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Originally published in 1996. Delves in detail into the Christian context bequeathed by Late Antiquity as a fundamental factor for the development of political ideas in the Middle Ages up to the mid-15th century, when the development of early modern territorial monarchies led to the rising influence of Renaissance humanism in the generation of new types of political-legal discourse. Reprinted with new introduction, 2005.
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Grewe, Wilhelm G. The Epochs of International Law. Translated and revised by Michael Byers. Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2000.
DOI: 10.1515/9783110902907Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A large part of this pivotal work is devoted to examining the Western medieval foundations of modern international law. It is the most influential representative of the epochal approach to the history of international law and its division into stages of particular development under the predominance of specific hegemonic powers.
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Haggenmacher, Peter. Grotius et la doctrine de la guerre juste. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1983.
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Other than being one of the most authoritative works on Hugo Grotius, this is also considered one of the best works on just war in the Middle Ages. Rather than focusing on Grotius’s influence over his successors, it attempts to restitute the work of the figure who crowned the scholastic tradition of jus belli, in its primitive intention and own truth. Republished in the eHeritage Publications of the Graduate Institute in 2013, which is available online
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Lesaffer, Randall. European Legal History: A Cultural and Political Perspective. Translated by Jan Arriens. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2009.
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A very rare combination of erudite and accessible writing that places the history of the civilian law tradition in a broader cultural and political context. Spanning three milennia, the treatment of medieval legal history in western Europe is highly enlightening and full of details. The reading flows almost like that of a novel. A must read.
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Muldoon, James. Canon Law, the Expansion of Europe, and World Order. Variorum Collected Studies Series. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 1998.
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A collection of essays on the key role of medieval canon lawyers in developing the language of international law on the basis that humanity forms a single, legally structured community. The volume also includes a bibliographical essay on the influence of the late-19th-century and 20th-century historiographical contest over the Catholic origins of international law.
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Paradisi, Bruno. Civitas Maxima. Studi del diritto internazionale. 2 vols. Florence: Olschki, 1974.
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Referential recollection of essays on the history of international law in the High and Late Middle Ages by a pioneering figure in the study of international law in the Middle Ages. Paradisi devoted a large body of scholarship to examining the doctrine and legal institutions of the history of international law in close relationship with the political and social history of those periods.
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Schmitt, Carl. The Nomos of the Earth in the International Law of the Jus Publicum Europaeum. Translated and introduced by G. L. Ulmen. New York: Telos Press, 2003.
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Polemical and original work on the origins and historical evolution of international law, including through the Middle Ages, that received much scholary commentary in the post–9/11 literature of international law. Available annotated translations from German also exist in Spanish (edited by Peter Haggenmacher, Franco Volpi, and José Luis Monereo, 2002), Italian (edited by Volpi, 2003) and French (edited by Haggenmacher, 2008).
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Weckmann, L. El pensamiento politico medieval y los origenes del derecho internacional. 2d ed. Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1993.
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Written by a distinguished Mexican diplomat, this work examines the historical evolution of political thought in the Middle Ages, and its role in the conformation of modern notions of sovereignty, the state, and nationalism. Delves into the possible role of medieval ideas in a promoting a better internationalism.
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Textbooks and Handbooks

Some occasional exceptions notwithstanding the reader shall look in vain for any detailed treatment of medieval international law in contemporary textbooks of international law. The reason for this is the traditional strong purchase of, as noted by Randall Lessafer, “a chronological state conception of international law in historiographical works which considered Medieval and Ancient periods as not corresponding to international legal system proprio sensu and thus excluded it from attention” (pp. 103–139, 109). Consequently, the coverage of the history of medieval and early modern international law is today to be found addressed in a minimalist fashion in most textbooks, generally through an introductory summary-like reference to the works of “classic” authors such as Francisco de Vitoria, Hugo Grotius, and Emmer de Vattel, who are found reiteratively elevated as representatives of the international legal traditions of, respectively, natural law, Grotianism, and positivism in international law. These scattered references are usually accompanied by a cursory and celebratory reference to the Peace of Westphalia as the mythical birthdate of the modern system of European states, marking the European geopolitical origin for a modern (or classical) law of nations, circumscribed in its application to the rights and duties of states in their external relations, and thus one growingly distancing itself (although far from ever entirely superseding it) on grounds of reasons of state from elements of moral and religion embedded in the natural law tradition. Whereas references to medieval international law are rarely found even in the footnotes of most contemporary mainstream international law textbooks, this area shares, even if only in a limited form, a tendency with the rest of the history of international law in other pre-1945 periods to find itself bifurcated into single-authored handbooks and, more recently, a series of multiauthored handbooks. Those of the first type include Gaurier 2005, Ziegler 2007, and Focarelli 2012 which, are representative of, respectively, French, German, and Italian single-authored handbooks on the history of international law written since the early 2000s. Along with Laghmani 2004, these volumes add up to earlier widely used survey-like books such as Truyol y Serra 1995 and Nussbaum 1954. Within the category of multiauthored handbooks on the history of international law that touch upon topics and subjects pertaining to the period 476–1550, reference is made her to both Orakhelashvili 2011 and, because of its attempt to adopt a larger global history perspective, Fassbender and Peters 2012.

Fassbender, Bardo, and Anne Peters. The Oxford Handbook of the History of International Law. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012.
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Inspired by a global history approach, this extensive multiauthored addition to the literature attempts to enhance a pluralist perspective on the history of international law. Containing more than sixty contributions, it makes for a richly diverse and, overall, enjoyable read. Not a map, but perhaps a compass for much-needed future developments in the field.
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Focarelli, Carlo. Introduzione storica al diritto internazionale. Milan: Giuffrè, 2012.
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Extensive single-authored book that attempts a synthetic perspective of the whole of the history of international law, with attention to less well-known aspects of ancient practices from Mesopotamia and the Near East. It includes a coverage of the European Middle Ages without departing from the classical-orthodox Eurocentric-Christian lineage of international law.
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Gaurier, Dominique. Histoire du droit international: Auteurs, doctrines et développement de l’Antiquitié à l’aube de la période contemporaine. Rennes, France: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2005.
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Conceived as a pedagogic tool for the teaching of the history of international law. Its time coverage spans from the third millennium BC up to the end of the League of Nations. It extends geographically to include ancient China and Islamic practices during the Middle Ages, and includes a number of translations of little-known classic texts and authors
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Laghmani, S. Histoire du droit des gens: Du jus gentium imperial au jus publicum europaeum. Paris: Pedone, 2004.
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An inquiry in the formative period of the history of international law. It is oriented to examine the interdependence between shifts in international law and both the evolution of the relationships between its main actors and the evolving character of those actors through history.
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Nussbaum, Arthur. A Concise History of the Law of Nations. 2d enlarged ed. New York: Macmillan, 1954.
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An example of the apologetic strand of international legal history that focuses on diplomacy and treaty relations. The Spanish translation (1949) contains long additions on the history of the Hispanic doctrine, which were written during the apogee of National Catholicism in Spain. Also available in German (1960).
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Orakhelashvili, Alexander. Research Handbook on the Theory and History of International Law. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 2011.
DOI: 10.4337/9780857933089Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Pioneering research handbook that aims, against the background of the contemporary proliferation of theoretical approaches to international law, to show the interdependence of theory and history of international law. Devotes a specific section to the history of international law, as well as specific chapters on the Middle Ages, the early modern period, and the classic law of nations.
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Truyol y Serra, Antonio. Histoire du droit international public. Paris: Economica, 1995.
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Presents an accessible and informative universalist approach to the history of international law influenced by the legal-sociologist axiom ibi societas inter potestates, ibi ius gentium, with interesting excursus on the Middle Ages. Although originally published in French, there is a Spanish edition (1998) by this author, who served as a judge of the Spanish Constitutional Court.
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Ziegler, K. H. Volkerrechtsgeschichte: Ein Studienbuch. 2d ed. Munich: C. H. Beck, 2007.
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This referential German handbook of the history of international law follows an epochal organization and includes a wealth of bibliographical references to both primary and secondary sources.
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Bibliographical Resources

Medieval international law has only relatively recently become the object of modern interest. This development was highlighted by Wilhelm Grewe, who noted in 1984 that “only in the last fifty years has the question of whether a law of nations existed in the Middle Ages been answered in the affirmative by scholars of international legal science.” However, books on the history of international law in the Middle Ages have been written at least since the end of the 18th century, including the one that often passes for being the first historical treatise of the discipline by Joaquin Marín y Mendoza, who published Historia del Derecho Natural y del Derecho de Gentes in Madrid in 1776. Moreover, many articles containing references to the history of international law in the Middle Ages have also appeared in both legal and historical journals. These articles, and many essays appearing in books, are still much in need of systematization and digitalized conservation. Fortunately, the greater accessibility of online bibliographical resources brought about by technological innovation over the few decades, along with a number of publishing initiatives, has helped to make medieval international law more widely accessible for research today. Among the most relevant journals accessible online are Ius Commune, the Journal of the History of International Law, and the journal of the Max Planck Institute for European Legal History, Rg Rechtsgeschichte, which also contains essays on the medieval history of international law. Since the early-mid-80ies, the Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law has provided a forum for the history of international law, and the contributions therein remain of bibliographical value. Moreover, the Collected Courses of the Hague Academy of International Law, throughout its more than 330 volumes, contain a number of courses that are useful to research the period, starting with the brief “Introduction a l’histoire du droit International” by Baron S. Korff, the very first volume of the classic series that kicked off in 1923. These references should be added to the valuable online Medieval Legal History database, which is part of the Internet Medieval Sourcebook hosted by Fordham University. Also useful as an online research source is the Peace Palace Library. A special mention is due to the extremely useful research engine Gallica, which, thanks to the French National Library, provides free access to many digitalized works from the early to mid-20th century that would otherwise be extremely difficult for researchers to access.

Collected Courses of the Hague Academy of International Law. Leiden, The Netherlands: Martinus Nijjhoff, 1923–.
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Not always well aged in this fast-growing era for the study of the history of international law, the 330 volumes published thus far in this series contain contributions on both Western and non-Western international legal history, as well as on the influence of the main religions over international law. Bibliography contains a reference to several of its volumes. All volumes available online through Martinus Nijjhoff Online
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Gallica: Biblioteque Numerique.
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Excellent research engine of the Biblioteque Nationale de France that allows users to download and read numerous books on the history of international law from the first part of the 20th century, including all the Collected Courses of the Hague Academy of International Law between 1923 and 1938. A true model of an open-access source for other national libraries.
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Ius Commune. 1967–2001.
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With most, but not all, of its contributions written in German, this journal was initially designed as the “in-house paper” of the Max Planck Institute for European Legal History, and later developed into a referential journal on legal history.
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Journal of the History of International Law. 1999–.
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Designed to stimulate interest in the whys, the whats, and wheres of international legal developments, the JHIL provides extensive coverage of scholarly debates that also extend to the history of international law in the Middle Ages and Antiquity. A port of call for the field.
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Medieval Legal History.
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A Section of the Internet Medieval Sourcebook that systematizes a great variety of both primary and secondary texts on medieval legal history. It is hosted by Fordham University as part of the Internet History Sourcebook Project, which is divided into the Internet Ancient History Sourcebook, the Internet Modern History Sourcebook, and the Internet Medieval Sourcebook. A must for bookworms.
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Peace Palace Library. Research Guide on the History of International Law.
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Despite its (still) non-periodized coverage of the literature, The Peace Palace Library’s continually updated online research guide on the history of international law provides a useful research tool for those who want to stay aware of recent bibliographical developments in this fast-growing area of studies.
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Rg Rechtsgeschichte: Legal History Journal of the Max Planck Institute for European Legal History.
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The Max Planck Institute for European Legal History stands as a key pole for the study of European legal history in general, and for medieval legal history in Europe in particular. Its flagship publication since 2002 follows in the footstepts of Ius Commune (1967–2001). Rg’s multilinguality mirrors the transcultural character of European legal history and the interconnection of legal histories both within and outside Europe.
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Wolfrum, Rüdiger, ed. Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law. New York: Oxford University Press, 2013.
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First published in 1981, this now online resource reflects the impact of the decolonization decades on the history of international law. Entries have been regularly updated, and new additions have been incorporated. Although some of the older entries have been replaced by new ones throughout the 2000s, the original ones (available in the printed version) are, although slightly outmoded, still worth consulting.
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Western Europe: Transition from Late Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages (476–1000 CE)

Often referred as the “Dark Ages,” the period between the demise of the Western Roman Empire in 476 CE and the coronation of Charlemagne as Emperor of the West in 800 CE is generally considered a transitional period for the law of nations in western Europe. The thesis of continuity of doctrines and institutions of international law from ancient periods was promoted early on in Verosta 1964. The same position can also be found in Ago 1982, which also stressed the need to be “well aware of the dangers lurking in the wholly unwarranted belief that international law is of exclusively Christian European descent” (p. 214). De Taube 1939, meanwhile, was among the first works to explore the contribution of Byzantium to the development of international law by highlighting the public law of the Byzantine Empire, which predated, by some centuries, the Western medieval Respublica Christiana. Despite the lack of a distinguishable international legal order built around the preeminence of a single dominant power, this transitional period should be seen as the cradle, as noted by W. Preiser, of a number of “international legal features, some of which had an influence on the law for a long time to come.” The intellectual history of medieval international law does, indeed, bear witness to the lasting cultural influence over international legal thought of the Roman civil law tradition and the doctrine of the church, which would, later on, be further developed through, respectively, the jus civile and canon law. The classic work of De Civitate Dei (The City of God; 413–426 CE) by Saint Augustine is considered a precursor of a model of the international community aspiring to the realization of a Civitas Maxima (see St. Augustine 1998). Notably, this religious-based teleological intellectual framework, within which international law is functionally understood as a means to the enshrining of a number of superior values, retains a great contemporary salience still today. Equally, Saint Isidore of Seville’s Etymologiae (626), an encyclopedic collection of the summa of universal knowledge of the time, which was found in the libraries of almost all monasteries in the Middle Ages, contained a definition of jus gentium that exerted a great influence during the Renaissance (see St. Isidore of Seville 2006). The Frankish Empire was confronted by the rivalry of both Byzantium and Islam, and it could not compare in terms of universality with the Roman Empire. Those interested in this area can consult a recent key monumental work for the study of international law in the Caroligian period, Steiger 2010. The disintegration of the Empire of Charlemagne (768–814) led to the emergence of some separate national powers in Europe. These would, nonetheless, remain glued together by a historical tendency to unify the West into a single whole. This tendency, which is, of course, still very much alive, was represented at the time by the two competing powers of the Western emperor and the papacy, which are characteristic of the High Middle Ages. See also Kitzinger 2012 and Paradisi 1956.

Ago, Roberto. “The First International Communities in the Mediterranean World.” British Yearbook of International Law 53.1 (1982): 213–232.
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Brief work oriented to explore the ancient pan-Mediterranean international community as a foreshadower of ulterior developments and the evolution of international legal doctrines.
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de Taube, M. “L’apport de Byzance au développement du droit international occidental.” Recueil de Cours de l’Académie de Droit International 67 (1939): 233–339.
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Highlights the contribution of Byzantium to international law in view of the predominance of the Eastern Roman Empire in Europe for six centuries, and how the unity of the Christian world as the basis for the public law of the Byzantine Empire predated, by some centuries, the Western medieval Respublica Christiana that had long been equated with the basis for ulterior notions of the international community. Available online by subscription.
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Kitzinger, Martin. “From the Late Middle Ages to the Peace of Westphalia.” In The Oxford Handbook of the History of International Law. Edited by Bardo Fassbender and Anne Peters, 607–627. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012.
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Despite its title, this historiographical accessible essay by a professor of history of the Middle Ages places the beginning of the history of international law in the Middle Ages in the Caroligian period, and provides reflective consideration of the role of medieval international law within the context of a new global history.
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Paradisi, Bruno. Storia del diritto internazionale nel medio evo: L’età de transizione. 2d augmented ed. Naples, Italy: Jovene Napoli, 1956.
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Collection of essays that highlight the existence of earlier expressions of doctrines and consciousness in the ancient world, and of its transition toward early medieval developments.
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St. Augustine. The City of God against the Pagans. Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
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St Augustine’s ideas had a great influence on the theory of international law in the later Middle Ages. Of particular relevance is his original contribution in relation to the concept of peace in general, and to the laws of war in particular, which formed the basis of the just war doctrine among the Scholastics of the 12th and 13th centuries and extended over to Saint Thomas of Aquinas.
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St. Isidore of Seville. The Etymologies of Isidore of Seville. Translated by S. A. Barney, J. A. Beach, and O. Berghof. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
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Part of longer effort at preservation of the past in a historical convulse period, St. Isidore’s definition of jus gentium in his Etymologiae, Book 5, chapter 6, is based on the Roman legal tradition and remained influential for its extensive reception in the Middle Ages for a long time: “Et inde ius gentium, quod eo iure omnes fere gentes utuntur.”
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Steiger, Heinhard. Die Ordnung der Welt. Eine Völkerrechtsgeschichte des karolingischen Zailtalters (741 bis 840). Cologne: Böhlau Köln, 2010.
DOI: 10.7788/boehlau.9783412212889Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Monumental work in which the author attempts to dispel the traditional view of the Caroligian period as an unimportant step in the historical chain that led to jus gentium in the High Middle Ages. Instead, he presents evidence pointing to the influence of both the practice and theory of inter-power relations during the Caroligian period for ulterior developments.
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Verosta, Stephan. “International Law in Europe and Western Asia between 100 and 650 AD.” Recueil de Cours de l’Académie de Droit International 113 (1964): 485–620.
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Influential generational perspective on the possibility of retracing a pattern of continuity for certain international legal doctrines and institutions between ancient sources and their contemporary equivalents.
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Western Europe: The High Middle Ages (1000–1300)

The transitional period from Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages is generally considered to end with the outbreak of the power struggles between the emperor and the pope, which in their legal dimension led to the development of the canon law and jus civile traditions. The intermingled development of these legal traditions greatly influenced the development of jus gentium within the framework of a Respublica Christiana or communitas communitatum. In particular, the Gregorian Reformation (1075) and the coetaneous rediscovery of a full copy of the Justinian Digest became major events. Canon law developed into a sophisticated web of legal theory that became the subject of university studies on the basis of the Decretum Gratiani, an authoritative collection of canon law since 1140–1150, which was followed by the Liber Extra, a codification of canon law promulgated by Gregory IX in 1234. Muldoon 1972 pioneered the modern study of the influence of canon lawyers over the jus gentium, and Lesaffer 2000 followed up this line of studies to examine the influence of medieval canon law of contract over early modern treaty law. Berman 1985 provides a background perspective on this evolving picture during the High Middle Ages by stressing the importance of the Papal Revolution of 1075–1122 for the formation of the Western legal tradition. The more clear-cut separation of ecclesiastical law from secular law was also fostered by the revived study of the Roman civil law tradition which spread to others parts of western Europe following a rediscovery of a full copy of the Justinian Digest by the jurists of the 11th century in northern Italy. The parallel development of these two legal traditions greatly influenced the framework of “the medieval order of Europe,” and with it the development of jus gentium. The canon law theory of the prerequisites for a state of war and the rules for its conduct became, for instance, important sources in the laws of war penned by writers who based their reasoning intensively upon St Augustine’s earlier works. This theory was first expounded by Gratian (around 1140–1150) and then systematically, and with particular clarity, by St, Thomas of Aquinas, in St. Thomas of Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae (1265–1274; see St. Thomas of Aquinas 2006). Multiple works can be consulted on Aquinas’s towering influence on the development of the natural law tradition, including, among the most recent ones, Lutz-Bachmann 2011, which provides an introductory comparative analysis of the concept of normativity in both Aquinas and Francisco Suarez. Meanwhile, Tuori 2012 examines the major contribution that Roman law made to the intellectual history of international law, which is epitomized by three competing conceptions of jus gentium that came from the Digest and are represented by Gaius, Ulpian, and Hermogenian. The influence of Roman Law on jus gentium is examined in Ziegler 1972, whereas a retrospective projection of the notion of international community can be found in Guggenheim 1955.

Berman, Harold J. Law and Revolution: The Formation of the Western Legal Tradition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985.
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Groundbreaking revisionist work for European legal history. It contradicted former “nationalist” periodizations of Western legal history by situating the roots of the core and essentially unitary distinctive concepts, legal institutions, and values of the Western state as a reaction to the great development of canon law that followed the “Papal Revolution” of the late 11th century.
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Guggenheim, Paul. “Jus gentium, jus naturae, jus civile et la communauté internationale issue de la divisio regnorum intervenue au cours des 12e et 13esiècles.” Comunicazioni e Studi 7 (1955): 1–31.
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Explores the idea that legal rules on relations between sovereign entities preexisted the Peace of Westphalia as evidenced by the division regnorum of the High Middle Ages, which theoretically benefited the basis of the distinction within jus gentium of “dominia,” “gentes,” and “regna” versus the nondetermination of jus naturale.
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Lesaffer, Randall. “The Medieval Canon Law of Contract and Early Modern Treaty Law.” Journal of the History of International Law 2 (2000): 178–198.
DOI: 10.1163/15718050020956821Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Lesaffer provides a throughout examination of the influence of the classical canon doctrine of contract on both some modern writers of international law and on early modern treaty practice.
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Lutz-Bachmann, Matthias. “The Concept of the Normativity of Law: “Ius Gentium” in the Writings of Francisco Suarez and Thomas Aquinas.” In Universality and Continuity in International Law. Edited by Thilo Marauhn and Heinhard Steiger, 235–247. The Hague: Eleven International, 2011.
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This recent addition to the large discussions of St. Thomas’s work in connection to international law examines the distinction between jus naturale and jus gentium in Suarez’s De legibus ac Deo Legislatore (1613), against the background of Thomist natural law conceptions. Highlights the modernity of Suarez’s conception of normativity for international law.
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Muldoon, James. “The Contribution of the Medieval Canon Lawyers to the Formation of International Law.” Traditio 28 (1972): 483–497.
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An interesting historiographical essay in which the author takes cause with how James Brown Scott’s championing in the interwar period of Francisco de Vitoria as the founder of international law blocked examination of the pre-Grotian development of international law, thus obscuring the contribution of canonists to some key questions of medieval international law.
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St. Thomas of Aquinas. Summa Theologiae: The Complete Paperback Set. 60 vols., plus index. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
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The fundamentals of Aquinas’s natural law doctrine are contained in the lex-treatise of his masterwork, the Summa Theologiae (I–II, qq. 90–108), written at the height of the mid- to late 13th century. St. Thomas’s four-tiered classification of lex aeterna, lex naturalis, lex humana, and lex divina had an enormous influence on the seconda scholastica and all subsequent natural law theorizing.
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Tuori, Kaius. “The Reception of Ancient Legal Thought in Early Modern International Law.” In The Oxford Handbook of the History of International Law. Edited by Bardo Fassbender and Anne Peters, 1012–1033. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012.
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Elaborates on the three competing notions of jus gentium bequeathed by Roman law. The three notions come from the Digest and are represented by Gaius, Ulpian, and Hermogenian as, respectively, the law that is shared by all nations in common, the law that grounds intercommunity relationships, and the law that relates to establishment of communities, property, relations between communities, war, and so on.
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Ziegler, Karl-Heinz. “Die römischen Grundlagen des europäischen Völkerrechts.” Ius Commune 4 (1972): 1–27.
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Highly recommended reading on the Roman influence, published in the earlier flagship of the Max Planck Institute for European Legal History. It includes a survey of relevant passages on international law matters in the Justinianic texts.
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Western Europe: Late Middle Ages (1300–1500)

By the early 14th century, early manifestations of the formulae rex qui superiorem non recognoscit in terris and rex imperator in regno were already signaling the gradual collapse of the religious, cultural, and, to a certain extent, political and juridical unity of the Respublica Christiana under the universal jurisdiction of pope and emperor, giving way to a late medieval sovereignty of concurrent legitimate authorities within each territory. This period of cohabitation witnessed the gradual rising of an early modern sovereignty or early modern state-system, which was influenced by political ideas developed through this period by the likes of Dante, Marsilius of Padua, and William of Ockham, and by the gradual advent of the doctrine of ragione di stato. The approach to international legal thinking emerged through this long transitional process from medieval to early modern international law, which would be further solidified by the European explorations of Africa and, particularly, the discovery of the New World. The slow process of transformation to early modern international law found an expression in the system of the Italian city-states, and in particular in Bartolo da Sassoferrato (b. 1314–d. 1357) and Baldo degli Ubaldi (b. 1327–d. 1400), who were specialists—both commentators and decretalists—in utroque iure—that is, in the interdependent yet separate twin branches of jus civile and canon law, which were conceptually unified into the jus commune, or the body of law that was common to the Christian territories at the time. Most notions touching upon traditional international legal topics, including sophisticated legal doctrines from this period on areas such as trade, war, and peace and diplomacy must indeed “be extracted from the glosses and commentaries of both civilian and canonists” of this period. However, from the 14th century onward, a limited number of self-standing treatises on international legal subjects began to be written. Among the famous treatises of the periodis the Tractatus represaliorum (1354) of Bartolo de Saxoferrato, which contains his famous view that “empire had sovereignty de jure and the city-states sovereignty de facto,” while Giovanni da Legnano, in 1360, produced the first comprehensive account of the subject of the laws of war (see Legnano 1917). Frances (1407) in Jados (1975) is seen as one of the most relevant codes on the customs and laws of the sea, including naval warfare, that emerged in the wake of trade and maritime practices by different thalassocracies and merchant Mediterraneas cities. Lesaffer 2004 provides detailed coverage of European peace practice, while Canning 1987 is of relevance for grasping the intricacies of medieval political theory, and for understanding both the role of Baldus of Ubaldis and the influence of jus gentium in the formation of medieval statehood. Wijffels 2011 provides a taste of the dense complexity of the legal-intellectual fabric of the period. Finally, both Rubin 1992 and Lesaffer 2003 examine how the discovery of America marked a turning point for the history of international law in the Late Middle Ages.

Canning, Joseph. The Political Thought of Baldus de Ubaldis. Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought, Fourth Series 6. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1987.
DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511523113Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
The most relevant work on Baldus, the disciple of Bartolus, with whom he shares the leading role in the school of commentators, and one of the most influential in European thought in the late medieval and Renaissance periods for his contribution to the notions of sovereignty of Italian-city republics, state-formation, and citizenship, which are the main focus of interest of this work.
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De Sassoferrato, Bartolus. Tractatus represaliarum (1354) in Consiliorum Bartoli Libri duo (Libri duo) (Lyon, 1555) fol. 125r-131r.
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A towering figure among postglossators, and often considered the first to offer a theoretical expression of the concept of independent states under a body of norms governing interstate relations in late MEDIEVAL Europe, de Sassoferrato’s work influenced many scholars and works on different areas, including the laws of war, such in Honore Bonet’s Arbre des batailles (1385).
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Frances, A. F. Consulate of the Sea and Related Documents. Edited and translated by Stanley S. Jados. University, AL: University of Alabama Press, 1975.
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Although the most quoted version is Francis Celelles’s Lo Libre de Consolat (Barcelona, 1494), this 1407 version is often referred as the earlier compilation of Mediterranean sea maritime customs and ordinances practice of the maritime community of Barcelona. This emerged alongside earlier recollections on maritime laws across Europe, such as the Amalfitan Tables (11th century), The Laws of Oleron (12th century), or the Laws of Wisby (13th century).
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Legnano, Giovanni da. Tractatus De Bello, De Represaliis et De Duello. 2 vols. Classics of International Law. Washington, DC: Carnegie Institution, 1917.
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Against the background of the Middle Ages’ general agreement on the illegality of pignorationes (reprisals) as contrary to natural law and equity, da Legnano’s work is considered “the first attempt to formulate a jus commune theory of reprisals within the larger context of state sanctioned violence” (Grabher O’Brien), in which the licit nature of reprisals derives from both lex divina and jus gentium. Reprint, Buffalo 1995.
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Lesaffer, Randall. “Charles V, Monarchia Universalis and the Law of Nations (1515–1530).” Legal History Review 71 (2003): 79–123.
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A conclusive portico for the Medieval period in western Europe, this article highlights how, despite the depiction of the early to mid-16th century as the prefoundational period of an European sovereign state-system, this period also witnessed a revival of the medieval ideal of unity of a Respublica Christina under the leadership of a universal monarch of the Holy Roman Empire, Charles V.
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Lesaffer, Randall, ed. Peace Treaties and International Law in European History: From the Late Middle Ages to World War One. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2004.
DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511494239Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
An ambitious design for a detailed coverage of European peace treaty practice. Offers an interdisciplinary inquiry into peace treaties from the late 15th century, with special attention to the influence of Roman and medieval notions in early modern period. Contains Martinus Garatus Laudensis, Tractatus de confederatione, pace et conventionibus principum, pp. 412–477. In the same volume, a commentary by A. Wijffels, “Martinus Garatus Laudensis on Treaties,” pp. 184–197
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Rubin, Alfred P. “International Law in the Age of Columbus.” Netherlands International Law Review 39 (1992): 5–35.
DOI: 10.1017/S0165070X00006082Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Highlights the importance of the discovery of the New World in triggering a twin transformation involving a conceptual change in the notion of natural law that transferred a new sense of universal morality to law and the reinforcement the authority of secular rulers against the Pope, which led to a shift in the legal relationships between the church and European states.
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Wijffels, Alain. “Early-Modern Scholarship on International Law.” In Research Handbook on the Theory and History of International Law. Edited by Alexander Orakhelashvili, 23–60. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 2011.
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The author places the development of international law in the context of successive dominant approaches that fleshed out the development of the jus commune tradition since the Late Middle Ages. These successive approaches were the mos italicus, legal humanism, the usus modernus and school of natural law.
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Periodizations and Geography in the History of International Law

Chronological periodizations and geography—or, more broadly, time and space—play a key role in the epochal demarcations (or subdivisions) of the history of international law. The crux of the matter lies with the definition of international law that undergirds each chronological periodization. The Eurocentric and Westernizing features of the classical historiographical narrative that places the origins of international at the jus publicum europaeum emerged from the collapse of the medieval Respublica Christiana have often been disputed. Indeed, contemporary postcolonial sensitivities had stressed the contribution of such a historiography to the construction of a great European narrative on the law of nations that contributed to a geocultural frame and an epistemology of domination, which tools of sub-alternization extended throughout the social sciences (including international law) in different imperial periods. Fisch 1984 remains an influential study on the role of international law in the European expansion. Fisch’s approach paved the way for subsequent studies, including many by scholars who used the new approaches to international law, and for whom the history of international law is, as noted in Bandeira Galindo 2012, a “force field.” On the other hand, the historiographical displacing effects of the great Eurocentric narrative of international law meant the medieval and ancient periods were viewed as not corresponding to international legal system proprio sensu, and these were thus excluded from consideration as a proper object of research for international lawyers. This issue is given attention in Kolb 2010, which is grounded in a pioneering study by W. Preiser, who had proposed a more relative and universal conception of international law as the law of “several independent political entities that had relations with each other on equal footing and acknowledged that their relations were governed by legal norms” (pp. 737–744). Marauhn and Steiger 2011 is a recent collection that addresses the cultural traditions of other regions as part of the study of a more global history of international law. This shift of focus has been animated, although far from uniquely, from such intercivilizational perspectives as the one heralded in Onuma 2000. This intercivilizational historiography has a precedent in the history of international law in Verosta 1979. A good introduction to the role of periodizations of international law can be found in Butler 2011. An early attempt at a radical reconceptualization that points, interestingly, to the tenets of a new methodology for a comparative history of international law is Schwarzenberger 1980.

Bandeira Galindo, George R. “Force Field: On History and Theory of International Law.” Zeitschrift des Max-Planck-Instituts fur europaische Rechtsgeschichte 20 (2012): 86–103.
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It would be hard to disagree with the author, who here reviews a series of post-1990s works containing critical approaches to the history of international law, about the dynamizing effect that critical history and theory had on the study of the history of international law.
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Butler, William. “Periodization and International Law.” In Research Handbook on the Theory and History of International Law. Edited by Alexander Orakhelashvili, 379–393. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 2011.
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Highlights the potential of new methodological research for international legal history to be able to develop its own periodizations, in contrast to earlier periodizations that emerged from the history of international relations and diplomacy. A useful inquiry into what hitherto was “an incidental and uncommon topic in the literature” (p. 392).
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Fisch, J. Die europäische Expansion und das Völkerrecht. Stuttgart: Steiner, 1984.
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Regarded as one of the most comprehensive histories of the role of international law in European expansion from the 16th to the 20th century. By showing the recurrence of classical debates through the use of critical conceptual history, this work was a bit avant la lettre and very influential in postcolonial readings of the history of international law.
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Kolb, Robert. Esquisse d’un droit international public des anciennes cultures extra-europeennes: Amérique precolombienne, Iles Polynésiennes, Afrique noire, Sous-continent indien, Chine et régions limitrophes. Paris: Editions Pédone, 2010.
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Half-translation from German of a pioneering study by W. Preiser (Frühe völkerrechtliche Ordmungen der aussereuropäischen Welt, 1976), and half new research. Highlights the existence of two histories of international law—one focusing on the jus publicum europaeum, the other inspired by the notion ubi societas inter potestates, ibi jus gentium. It provides a useful bibliography divided by regions.
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Marauhn, Thilo, and Heinhard Steiger, eds. Universality and Continuity in International Law. The Hague: Eleven International, 2011.
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Oriented to show that research in the history of public international law cannot be limited to a European perspective, but should cover the cultural and legal traditions of other regions as well. It contains at least ten essays directly relevant to the medieval period by notable scholars dealing with interesting topics around universality and continuity in international law.
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Onuma, Yasuaki. “When Was the Law of International Society Born? An Inquiry of the History of International Law from an Intercivilizational Perspective.” Journal of the History of International Law 2.1 (2000): 1–66.
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The author is a staunch defender of the necessity to reconceptualize the history of international law for it to reflect a much greater sensitivity for the transcultural, trans-religious and trans-civilizational aspects of its coming into being if its achievements are to endure and remain legitimate in the eyes of a contemporary world, where more of the 80 percent of the population is not Western.
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Schwarzenberger, Georg. “Historical Models of International Law: Toward a Comparative History of International Law.” In International Law in Comparative Perspective. Edited by W. E. Butler, 227–250. Alphen aan den Rijn, The Netherlands: Sijtholf and Noordholf International, 1980.
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Presented as “a plea for a radical reappraisal of the treatment of the history of international law as a subject of study and research” (p. 227). Schwarzenberger introduces seven new methodological desiderata for the development of comparative international legal history, including that it should “reflect awareness of the rise, plurality and passing of individual civilizations since the dawn of recorded history” (p. 228)
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Verosta, Stephan. “Regionen und Perioden der Geschichte des Volkerrechts.” Osterreichische Zeitschrift für Offentliches Recht und Volkerrecht 30 (1979): 1–21.
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Provides a divisional scheme for the history of the law of nations based on an examination of the particular sequence of events of significance that occurred in the main regions where the historical development of the law of nations had taken place, leading to a universal international law in contemporary world system.
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Islam

References to the Islamic law of nations from the Middle Ages are often to be found scattered in general works and books addressing other subjects, such as the Qurʾan and its exegesis, the Hadith and its commentaries and books of jurisprudence. Nonetheless, there is no lack of books specifically dealing with the law of nations penned by Islamic legal scholars who antecede Western authors. Rechid 1937 notes that various volumes written between the 9th and the 13th-14th centuries prove “that Muslim authors had written in this area long before the Christians had published their first books on topics more or less connected to the law of peoples” (pp. 385–386). The most well-known of such books is Kitab al-Siyar al-Kabir, a true treatise of the law of nations divided into two volumes, written by Muhammad b. al-Hasan al-Shaybani (804–952), sometime known as the Islamic Grotius, which is translated in English in Khadduri 1966. Weeramantry 1988 looks at the pioneering efforts of Islamic jurists to develop a system of international law centuries before the European law of nations, against what the author terms “generations of prejudiced writing” (p. 128). Indeed, despite a considerable number of works on the historical relations between the Christian and Muslim faiths, among which the five volumes of Thomas and Mallet 2009–2013, covering from the 7th century to 1900, the Islamic international law has often been disregarded by the historically dominant western European international legal tradition. The lacuna on the cross-cultural origins of the law of nations may be seen with particularly acuity in the Spanish-Islamic osmosis which exerted its influence for centuries in the Iberian peninsula. This Spanish-Islamic osmosis reached its symbolic climax in the cross-cultural roads of Toledo in the times of Alphonse X of Castille, a 13th-century king called “the Wise,” who fostered medieval Europe’s most comprehensive code of law, the “Siete Partidas” and who, by sponsoring Toledo’s School of Translators, enriched Latin and the emerging Castilian language (then Spanish) with Islamic and Hebrew sources of knowledge. Allain 2011 refers to this still very little-studied phenomenon of acculturation through the Middle Ages, whereas Lohlker 2006 is a book-length work that examines the role of Granada in the history of international law. Johnson and Kelsay 1991 focuses, in its turn, on the classical historiography on the study of the original just war doctrine and its lineage. Milliot 1949 elaborates on the conception of the state and the legal order in Islam, while Pohl 1988 provides a general account of Islamic international law in historical perspective.

Allain, Jean. “Acculturation through the Middle Ages: The Islamic Law of Nations and Its Place in the History of International Law.” In Research Handbook on the Theory and History of International Law. Edited by Alexander Orakhelashvili, 394–407. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 2011.
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Suggests the impossibility that the Spanish school and Grotius did not inherit anything through acculturation from the Muslim civilization, with an Islamic law of nation’s dating back to the 8th-century al-Siyar. By highlighting earlier influences noted in the first codification of law in Europe, Las Siete Partidas of Alphonse X of Castile, it continues a line of research still very much in need of exploration
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Johnson, James T., and John Kelsay, eds. Just War and Jihad: Historical and Theoretical Perspectives on War and Peace in Western and Islamic Traditions. Contributions to the Study of Religion 28. New York: Greenwood, 1991.
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Seeks to help spur a more systematic cross-disciplinary and cross-cultural study of Islamic and Western traditions in relation to war, its justification, and the limitations attached to it.
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Khadduri, M. The Islamic Law of Nations. Shaybani’s Siyar. Baltimore: John Hopkins Press, 1966.
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Often “considered the world’s earliest treatise of international law as a separate topic” (Weeramantry, p. 130), this is the most comprehensive of the historical fiqh manuals. Reprinted by John Hopkins University Press in 2001.
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Lohlker, Rüdiger. Islamisches Völkerrecht: Studien am Beispiel Granada. Bremen, Germany: Kleio Humanitas, 2006.
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Historical examination of the role of Granada, the last European Muslim state at the cross-roads of the Islamic and Christian international legal traditions, and of the practical realism of the contractual and diplomatic relations with its neighbors. See p. 188.
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Milliot, Louis. “La conception de l’Etat et de l’ordre legal dans l’Islam.” Recueil de Cours de l’Académie de Droit International 75 (1949): 591–686.
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Examines the role of the ummah and different theories—both Sunni and Shiʿa—of the caliphate, before focusing on the Islamic legal order and the notion of sovereignty within the moral unity of the Islamic world.
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Pohl, Dietrich F. R. Islam und Friedensvölkerrechtsordnung: Die dogmatischen Grundlagen der Teilnahme eines islamischen Staates am modernen Völkerrechtssystem am Beispiel Ägyptens. Vienna and New York: Springer Verlag, 1988.
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Considered the closest to a comprehensive critical treatment of Islamic international law. It generally stands in the German literature along with an earlier work (1979) on Islamic international law by Hans Kruse, who baptised Muhammad al-Shaybani as the Hugo Grotius of the Muslims.
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Rechid, Ahmed. “L’Islam et le droit des gens.” Recueil de Cours de l’Academie de Droit International de la Haye 60 (1937): 371–504.
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Produced for the Hague Academy at the end of the interwar period, this course provides a methodological system of the Islamic precepts on the law of nations, and it remains a valuable bibliographical source for the history of Islamic international law.
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Thomas, David, and Alex Christian Mallet, eds., with Juan Pedro Monferrer-Sala, Johannes Pahlitzsch, Mark Swanson, Herman Teule, John Tolan. Christian-Muslim Relations. A Bibliographical History. 5 vols. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2009–2013.
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Indispensable tool for research in Christian-Muslim relations in historical perspective, this monumental five-volume (and ongoing) work covers the years 600-1500. It provides a general history of relations between the two faiths through a complete account and assessment of all recorded texts.
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Weeramantry, Christopher. Islamic Jurisprudence: An International Perspective. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 1988.
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Written by a former ICJ judge (1991–2000), who attempts here to present how classical Islamic jurists attempted to develop a comprehensive body of human rights principles and practice as well as a corpus of international law principles that influenced medieval authors such as Thomas Aquinas, as well as the works of the Spanish founders of international law.
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Africa

Works that try to reconstruct a precolonial history of international law in Africa make reference to the existence of a number of states that, since the 4th century and, even more so, the 9th century, engaged in regulated interstate relations between themselves as well as with both European and Middle Eastern nations. Elias 1972 belongs within a first postcolonial generation that attempted to provide the African continent with a history of the interactions of different empires, kingdoms, and peoples, both among neighbors and between more distant parts of the African continent and non-African regions, to cast a greater light into a customary body of international legal principles of African origin. Also representative of the spirit of the first postcolonial generation is Mensah-Brown 1975, which attempts to confront the legacy of a Eurocentric historical epistemology to mark the contribution of Africa to the development of international law in action before colonization. The critical underpinnings of this type of scholarship have grown through time. This is shown in African critical international scholarship such as Mutua 2010. For Mutua, the “blotting out of early African history” is part racist mythology, according to which, before colonialism, “Africans were a tabula rasa in international law.” For Mutua, there cannot be any doubt that the denial of African international law is part of a “willful dehumanization used to justify the continent’s subsequent enslavement, colonization and exploitation,” a project in which international law, “construed as the project of European nations,” played a decisive role. Not alien to the revulsive intellectual punch of this approach lies the examination of the phenomenon of slavery, of which Megret 2010 presents a historical reevaluation in the light of history of international law. Gathii 2012 is an interesting historiographical essay that highlights the differences and points of connection between two main schools, the contributionist school and the critical theory school, to the study of Africa’s historical relationship with international law. Afolayan 2012 provides a good bibliographical source for those interested in a background bibliographical examination of African historiography, and who wish to become familiar with alternative multidisciplinary methods that could be helpful for international legal historians interested in overcoming the difficulty posed by the need to rely on written sources as the essential vehicle for investigation on the history of the law of nations in Africa. For those interested in the evolution and historical peculiarities of specific regional spheres, Sahli and El Ouazzani 2012 provides an examination of the case of North Africa, where the defining influence of Sunni Islam and its belonging to the Mediterranean Basin marked fundamentally the evolution of international legal conceptions. Finally, a good background historical perspective for the study of medieval Africa is provided in Oliver and Atmore 2002.

Afolayan, Funso. Historiography and Methods of African History. In Oxford Bibliographies: African Studies. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012.
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A highly enlightening and informative bibliographical selection on different trends and stages on the historiography of African history, as well as the ongoing experimentation with a variety of sources and multidisciplinary methods ranging from archaeology, ethnography, anthropology, linguistics, and art history to oral traditions. Available online.
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Elias, T. O. Africa and the Development of International Law. Leiden, The Netherlands: Sijthoff, 1972.
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Highlights the “silent contribution” of Africa to the doctrinal development of international law against European claims to universality. This revisionist contribution propounds the existence of a universal body of principles of African customary law, suggesting that they emerged from African peoples to kingdoms and political units equivalent to Western states, such as the Kingdom of Ghana, the Mali Empire, Benin, and Yoruba.
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Gathii, James Thuo. “Africa.” In The Oxford Handbook of the History of International Law. Edited by Bardo Fassbender and Anne Peters, 407–428. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012.
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Interesting historiographical essay that distinguishes between a contributionist school, which reclaims a place for Africa in international legal history, and a critical theory school, which delves in the dark sides of the history of colonialism and remains less prone to engagement with universalist epistemologies.
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Megret, Frederic. “Droit international et esclavage: Pour une réévaluation.” African Yearbook of International Law/Annuaire Africain du droit international 18 (2010): 121–183.
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A long and reflective essay in French that examines how international law did historically coexist in harmony with slavery, to the extent of sometimes becoming an obstacle to the abolitionist movement. It also examines the ambiguous character of abolitionism, elevated as the great cause of international law but also serving as a tool for the development of imperialism and the colonial project.
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Mensah-Brown, A. K., ed. African International Legal History. New York: United Nations Institute for Training and Research, 1975.
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Interdisciplinary collection that includes essays on both general issues and specific regions in its examination of war and peace among African states, with particular attention to the development of diplomatic relations. Almost forty years after its publication, this topic would well benefit future collective works that might follow in the footsteps of this edited collection, which reads as somewhat outdated today.
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Mutua, Makau. Review of Africa: Mapping New Boundaries in International Law. Edited by Jeremy I. Levitt. American Journal of International Law 104.3 (2010): 532–538.
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In regard to the historiographical legacy of Eurocentrism in international law for the history of the African continent, the expression “looking back in anger” could well capture the brisk critical tone that permeates a recent work by one of the leading African representatives of Third World approaches to international law.
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Oliver, R., and A. Atmore. Medieval Africa, 1250–1800. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002.
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Traversing the geography of the African continent from Egypt to the land of the blacksmith kings, or from Central Sudan and Lower Guinea to the Luabala and the Zambezi, and from the Islamic Far West to the Peoples of the South, this work offers an accessible account for those interested in substantive international historical-legal work on the African continent.
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Sahli, Fatimah, and Abdelmalek El Ouazzani. “Africa North of the Sahara and Arab Countries.” In The Oxford Handbook of the History of International Law. Edited by Bardo Fassbender and Anne Peters, 385–406. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012.
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The practices of North African states act as a conveyor-belt to examine the contribution of Islamic civilization to international law, and serve here as reminder of the far from nonhomogenous character of the African experiences in regard to the history of international law.
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Pre-Columbian Americas

No other region of the world presents a better example of the shortage and marginality of autochthonous histories of international law, and of the failure of the discipline to account for the plurality of international legal histories, than the Americas. Despite a the existence of the long scholarly tradition that highlights the special character of American international law, there is striking scarcity of specialized international legal literature on pre-Columbian America in international law. A good review of Latin-American literature which helps one to understand the lack of will to be strategically or otherwise connected with indigenous forms of international legal order predating the Spanish conquest, is Becker Lorca 2006. Those interested in how the early process of Westernization also meant a colonization of the imaginary, which may go some way to account for the roots of the state of affairs among Latin American international lawyers, will find that Gruzinski 1988 provides an interesting background. The transposition of medieval European institutions to Latin America was central to the conquest and bequeathed a profound legacy, as shown in Weckman 1992 in the case of Mexico. However, despite the difficult accessibility to scattered sources on the development of forms of international law in the Teotihuacan and Mayan Empires in the first millenium in Central America, as well as its successors, following the rise of the empire of the Toltecs between 950 and 1150, and the Aztec Empire, with its mythical capital of Tenochtitlan, especially in the late 14th to 15th century, international legal historians can profit from works such as Hassig 2007, which examines the phenomena of peace, reconciliation, and alliance in ancient Mexico. The study of Mochica and Nazca cultures in America Austral or in the Southern part of South America, which would be followed by the Inca Empire, are covered in Julien 2007. In each of these spaces, interactive phenomena that can be associated with international legal institutions, including original “Indian American” institutions such as the guerra florida, or “war of flowers,” during Moztezuma’s times, which remain still very much in need of exploration by international lawyers. More to the north, an introduction to forms of international law between Iroquois Nations can be found in Crawford 2007. Two general works on the law of Indians before the conquest are Dyckerhoff and Göbel 1994 and Aguilar Áyanz 1993, which looks at the manifestation of international law in the pre-Columbian world.

Aguilar Áyanz, Carmela. Manifestaciones del derecho internacional en el mundo precolombino. Lima, Peru: El Dorado Editores, 1993.
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One of the very few monographics available on the manifestation of international law in the pre-Columbian world.
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Becker Lorca, Arnulf. “International Law in Latin America or Latin American International Law? Rise, Fall, and Retrieval of a Tradition of Legal Thinking and Political Imagination.” Harvard International Law Journal 47.1 (Winter 2006): 283–305.
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A valuable historiographical starting point, for one to reflect further on the obscure reasons of the almost nonexistence of scholarship on medieval international law in Latin America.
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Crawford, Neta. “The Long Peace among Iroquois Nations.” In War and Peace in the Ancient World. Edited by Kurt A. Raaflaub, 348–368. Oxford: Blackwell, 2007.
DOI: 10.1002/9780470774083Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Part of a larger book that focuses on war and peace in the ancient world in a global perspective, this contribution examines the League of Iroquois Nations, whose members kept their autonomy and independently determined both their domestic and foreign policies.
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Dyckerhoff, Ursula, in collaboration with Barbara Göbel. “Geschichte der indianer bis zur conquista.” In Handbuch der Geschichte Lateinamerikas. Vol. 1, Mittel-, Südamerika und die Karibik bis 1760. Edited by Walther L. Bernecker, Marcello Carmagnani, and Raymond Th. Buve, 101–206. Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1994.
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Encyclopedic first volume within a three-tiered monumental collection on the history of Latin America. This long work on the history of Indian law before the conquest should prove useful for researchers looking for a background perspective against which to situate the study of international law phenomena in pre-Columbian America.
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Gruzinski, Serge. La colonisation de l’imaginaire. Sociétés indigènes et occidentalisation dans le Mexique espagnol (XVIe–XVIIIe siècle). Paris: Gallimard, 1988.
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Examines the intellectual and spiritual adaptation of indigenous peoples to Western culture and legal order informed by Catholic practices; a process known as the colonization of the imaginary.
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Hassig, Ross. “Peace, Reconciliation, and Alliance in Aztec Mexico.” In War and Peace in the Ancient World. Edited by Kurt A. Raaflaub, 312–328. Oxford: Blackwell, 2007.
DOI: 10.1002/9780470774083Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Examines the bellicosity of the Aztecs, considering that the closest they came to pacifism was the practical recognition that, “from the perspective of the empire, any form of voluntary submission was preferable to conquest.”
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Julien, Catherine. “War and Peace in the Inca heartland.” In War and Peace in the Ancient World. Edited by Kurt A. Raaflaub, 329–347; xii, 385. Oxford: Blackwell, 2007.
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Examines the centrality of war in Inca civilization, and how the predominance of war of conquest oriented to peaceful submission to the Inca rule influenced the treatment of war prisoners.
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Weckman, Luis. The Medieval Heritage of Mexico. Translated by F. M. Lopez Morillas. New York: Fordham University Press, 1992.
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Highlights the transplanting of feudal institutions of medieval political, religious, economic, social, cultural, and legal roots from Spain to Latin America. By providing a context of how the Middle Ages flowered in the new continent, Weckman helps one to better grasp the role of medieval international law in the American continent, and its prolonged existence.
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China and East Asia

Extended over four great dynasties, the Tang (618–907 CE), Song (Sung) Dinasty (960–1270) Yuan (1206–1368) and Ming (1368–1643), histories of the law of nations in the larger part of the Chinese Middle period (c. 100–1500) tend to highlight the great cultural influence of Confucianism in the establishment of power relations in the Chinese regional sphere of influence known as Tianxia (all under Heaven), in which China, as the Middle Kingdom (Hongguo), perceived itself to be at the very heart (see Tse-shyang Chen 1991). In its turn, Li 2002 provides an elaborate examination of the centrality of a Sinocentric normative framework (or universal state) of China with its neighboring regions, and those regions among themselves, instead of a state-to-state framework of relations based on equal sovereignty. The relations between China and its neighbors was influenced by Confucianist notions that reflected an extension of the domestic legal realm to foreign relations. Fairbank 1968 helped to disseminate knowledge in English-speaking circles about the character of a hierarchical system based on moral virtue rather than military might, which was compounded by a tribute system based on trade-benefits for tributary nations as a caveat of the Chinese cultural superiority. The great influence of Fairbank’s work led to a number of debates. For instance, Morris 1983 disputes the hierarchical nature of the tributary system at the heart of Sinocentric order, and characterized it instead as a mutually beneficial regional system for trading exchanges established on a more equal footing. Chaffee 2013 fleshes out the historical background by providing a bibliographical coverage of the historiography of the Chinese Middle Period, with attention to reunification of the empire in the 580s and the character of the successive imperial dynasties. Although the triad of Sinocentrism, tributary system, and Confucianism is often challenged as a generalist depiction with limited explanatory potential to account for the conforming features of the period, it is still often used to explain why, despite the existence of numerous contacts with other civilizations, including European and Islamic ones, the Chinese experienced great difficulties in developing a system of interstate relations, and in adapting to an equal sovereignty–based international legal order in ulterior periods, as shown in Tang 2012. See also Wang 1990.

Chaffee, John. Middle Period China. In Oxford Bibliographies: Chinese Studies. New York: Oxford University Press, 2013.
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Provides detailed bibliographical coverage of the main works and underlying historiographical trends on China and its influence during the Middle Period (c. 100–1500), and the ensuing contributions of subsequent dynasties. Provides historical perspective for international legal historians to grasp the influence of this period in shaping Chinese attitudes to international law. Available online.
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Fairbank, John King, ed. The Chinese World Order; Traditional China’s Foreign Relations. With Contributions by Ta-Tuan Ch‘en and others. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1968.
DOI: 10.4159/harvard.9780674333482Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Highly influential book on the Chinese world order, which bequeathed many of the notions used by international legal scholars on the roles of Sinocentrism, the tributary system, and Confucianism.
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Li, Zhaoije. “Traditional Chinese World Order.” Chinese Yearbook of International Law 1 (2002): 20–58.
DOI: 10.1093/oxfordjournals.cjilaw.a000418Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Offers illuminating insights into the difficulty of assimilation of a Western legal and international legal by a traditional system organized on the basis of hierarchical and anti-egalitarian principles legitimized by a Confucian perspective of “peace and harmony.”
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Morris, Rossabi, ed. China among Equals: The Middle Kingdom and Its Neighbors, 10th–14th Centuries. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983.
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Challenges an understanding of the hierarchical order based on the tributary system during this period.
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Tang, Chi-Hua. “China-Europe.” In The Oxford Handbook of the History of International Law. Edited by Bardo Fassbender and Anne Peters, 701–723. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012.
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Discusses the interrelations of international law between China and European since the 15th century, with references to the prevalence of China’s traditional perspectives on world order and its conflictual relationship with sovereign-equal Western perspectives of international law.
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Tse-shyang Chen, Frederick. “The Confucian View of World Order.” Indiana International Law & Comparative Law Review 1.45 (1991): 45–70.
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Examines the influence of the Confucian conception of community and order and the lack of distinction between moral and legal orders, including the influence on the Chinese approach to international relations in search for the ultimate goal of “Ping,” or the Great Harmony. Reprinted in Religion and International Law, Edited by Mark W. Janis and Carolyn Evans (Martinus Nijhoff, 2004).
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Wang, Tieya. “International Law in China: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives.” Recueil de Cours de l’Academie de Droit International 221 (1990): 195–360.
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The historical section of the course offered at the Hague Academy examines the Chinese traditional system as a background to the introduction of international law into China and the imposition of the unequal treaty regime, before examining contemporary Chinese perspectives on international law.
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South and Southeast Asia

Postcolonial Asian scholarship has distinguished itself for disputing the purchase of dominant Eurocentric perspectives on the history of international law as a factor that erodes the foundational universalist aspirations of international law. Alexandrowicz 1965–1966 and Alexandrowicz 1967 pioneered this line of scholarship with, respectively, devoted works on the Kautilyan principles contained in the Arthashastra and the role played by the law of nations in ordering relations with Europeans from the 16th century in the East Indies against the background of the highly developed historical legal tradition of the region. Ulterior works, such as the highly influential Anand 1983 and Anand 2004, helped to cast further light on the Asian history on interpower relations and the untenability of an Eurocentric great narrative on the origins of the international law in view of the particular influence of Asian practices. Singh 1995 analyzes the different versions of statehood, sovereignty, kinship, and hierarchies of suzerain-vassal relations that characterized ancient and medieval Indocentric South Asia and the regional recognition of interstate norms on statehood, diplomatic relations, treaties, religious tolerance, the non-use of force, neutrality, and humanitarian law, as well as the binding character of treaties under the central ordering role for regional interstate relations of the concept of dharma, which was an extensive body of religious, moral, social, and legal duties and obligations, and its hybridization with Islamic concepts. Singh’s work also contains important insights on the cross-cultural influence over the diversity of kingdoms, principalities, and sultanates that composed premodern Southeast Asia (broadly speaking, Burma, Malaya, Sumatra, Thailand, Brunei, Darussalam, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, and Laos) of Hindu, Buddhist, Islamic, and Chinese legal traditions and related conceptions of world order. Particular relevant is the influence of Hindu works such as the Mānava-Dharmásāstra (Olivelle 2005) that emphasized conflict resolution through mushawara-mufakat (collective decision-making), Moreover, Buddhist sources that influenced legal treatises such as the Dhammathat or the Dhammasattham in particular regions, or the greater influence of Islamic law through the main teachings of the Qurʾan and Sharia law or Chinese legal traditions based on Confucian precepts, found transmission to the laws of war in others regions as a consequence of the frequent coastal contact with Europeans. Likewise, Penna 1989 elaborates on the ancient tradition of humanitarian law in India and the influence over it of concepts such Dharma-yuddha (just war) and Adharma-yuddha (unjust war) under the basic framework provided by the Dharmashastra as a branch of dharma. Chimni 2010 provides a fresh and informative look at different generations of scholarship on international law in postcolonial India.

Alexandrowicz, C. H. “Kautilyan Principles and the Law of Nations.” British Yearbook of International Law 41 (1965–1966): 301–320.
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Points to the existence of a Kautilyan tradition based on a systematic code of rules on intersovereign relations known as Kaulilya’s Arthasastra (4th century BC), and the possibility of examining the impact of its principles on the general development of the law of nations. A pioneering work by a celebrated Western scholar who occupied the chair of international law at Madras University between 1951 and 1961.
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Alexandrowicz, C. H. An Introduction to the Law of Nations in the East Indies (16th, 17th and 18th centuries). Oxford: Clarendon, 1967.
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Celebrated as a pioneering work on the role of non-Europeans in international law, this volume provides an exhaustive historical survey that examines the significance of the diplomatic and treaty relations entertained by Western-based East Indies companies and East Indies rulers. An avant la lettre classic in this area.
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Anand, R. P. “On the Influence of History on the Literature of International Law.” In The Structure and Process of International Law: Essays in Legal Philosophy, Doctrine and Theory. Edited by St. R. MacDonald and D. M. Johnston, 341–380. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1983.
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An analytical challenge to the shaky historical foundations of the regional particularism lurking behind claims of European universalism in traditional scholarship on the history of international law. Anand highlights instead the importance of cross-cultural influences in its development.
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Anand, R. P. Studies in International Law and History: An Asian Perspective. Leiden, The Netherlands: Martinus Nijhoff, 2004.
DOI: 10.1007/978-94-017-5600-6Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Anand is a highly influential figure for the development of a postcolonial Indian perspective of the international law along the lines of a New International Economic Order. India and international law were also made the object of a periphery series of the Leiden Journal of International Law in 2010.
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Chimni, B. S. “International Law Scholarship in Post-colonial India: Coping with Dualism.” Leiden Journal of International Law 23 (2010): 23–51.
DOI: 10.1017/S092215650999032XSave Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Explores the linkage between “law and periphery” through a critical appreciation of the intellectual history of international law scholarship in a leading Third World country. Chimni reviews, among others, the seminal postcolonial efforts to record the contribution of precolonial India to the evolution of the law of nations, including by reference to the development of international law in medieval India.
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Olivelle, Patrick, ed. and trans. Manu’s Code of Law: Critical Edition and Translation of the Mānava-Dharmásāstra. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.
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This classic text of the Indian millenarian culture is often referred as an ancient source for the supremacy of the law that influenced both domestic and external interpower relations, based on the essential concepts of dharma and danda.
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Penna, L. R. “Conduite de la guerre et traitement réservé aux victimes des conflits armés, 29 règles écrites ou coutumières en usage dans l’Inde ancienne.” Revue International de la Croix-Rouge (1989): 346–363.
DOI: 10.1017/S0035336100017317Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Explores the ancient sources of humanitarian international law regulating the relations of different states in the Indian subcontinent under the influence of dharma in areas that range from the treatment of prisoners of war to the distinction between combatants and noncombatants.
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Singh, Nagendra. “History of the Law of Nations: South and South-East Asia.” In Encyclopedia of Public International Law. Vol. 2. Edited by Rudolph Bernhard, 824–839. Amsterdam: Elsevier North-Holland, 1995.
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Highlights the influence of cultural-religious conceptions of Indian origin extended over the realm of regional interstate relations. The author points to the influence of the concept of dharma and of works such the Ramayana, the Mahabharata, the Code of Manu, of the Kautilyan principles contained in the Arthashastra.
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