Chapter 3 - The foundations of Victorian international law

Summary

INTRODUCTION

In textbooks on the history of international law, the nineteenth century is depicted as a period that saw the transformation of a Law of Nations applicable to a family of Christian and European peoples into a body of international law common to a society of civilised nations. This general development – in no small part due to the global influence of Britain – took place in the context of an uneven and gradual extension of the states system. Especially in continental versions of the history of international law, which are premised on a close relationship between political and intellectual power, the nineteenth century is therefore often delineated as ‘the British era’. Meanwhile, theoretical debates over international law are identified, in slightly teleological fashion, as moving from a ‘rationalist natural law and abstract character’ towards considerations of state practice: in short, from naturalism to positivism. While such a change of attitude is certainly detectable, this narrative simplifies a much more complex and variegated story. The literature on the intellectual history of nineteenth century Britain has tended to treat international, including international legal, questions only tangentially. Moreover, a recent and extremely valuable account of the rise of international law, which identified a ‘late-Victorian reformist sensibility written into international law’, lacks a specifically British perspective.