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Made in Empire: Finding the History of International Law in Imperial Locations

Introduction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 June 2018

LAUREN BENTON
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Abstract

A wave of interdisciplinary scholarship in the last two decades has managed to place empires at the center of the history of international law. This article surveys key insights resulting from this move and assesses remaining challenges. In explaining how the study of law in particular imperial locations can illuminate global legal transformations, the article identifies cross-cutting themes of articles in this special volume.

Keywords

empiresimperialismjurisdictionlegal politics
Type
INTERNATIONAL LEGAL THEORY: Symposium on ‘Imperial Locations’
Information
Leiden Journal of International Law , Volume 31 , Issue 3 , September 2018 , pp. 473 - 478
Copyright
Copyright © Foundation of the Leiden Journal of International Law 2018 

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Footnotes

*

Nelson O. Tyrone Jr. Professor of History and Professor of Law Vanderbilt University [[email protected]].

References

1 See A. Anghie, Imperialism, Sovereignty, and the Making of International Law (2005); see also E. Keene, Beyond the Anarchical Society: Grotius, Colonialism and Order in World Politics (2002).

2 L. Benton, A Search for Sovereignty: Law and Geography in European Empires, 1400-1900 (2010), Ch. 5; K. Mantena, Alibis of Empire: Henry Maine and the Origins of Indirect Rule (2009).

3 Examples are M. van Ittersum, Profit and Principle: Hugo Grotius, Natural Rights Theories and the Rise of Dutch Power in the East Indies, 1595-1615 (2006); Benton, L. and Straumann, B., ‘Acquiring Empire by Law: From Roman Doctrine to Early Modern European Practice’, (2010) 28 (1) Law and History Review 1CrossRefGoogle Scholar; A. Fitzmaurice, Sovereignty, Property and Empire, 1500-2000 (2014).

4 Katherine Hermes coined the term ‘jurispractice’ in ‘“Justice Will Be Done Us”: Alqonquian Demands for Reciprocity in the Courts of European Settlers’, in C.L. Tomlins and B.H. Mann (eds.), The Many Legalities of Early America (2001), 123.

5 For example, L. Ford, Settler Sovereignty: Jurisdiction and Indigenous People in America and Australia, 1788-1836 (2009); A. Becker Lorca, Mestizo International Law: A Global Intellectual History 1842-1933 (2015).

6 L. Benton and L. Ford, Rage for Order: The British Empire and the Origins of International Law, 1800-1850 (2016).

7 Benton, L. and Clulow, A., ‘Legal Encounters and the Origins of Global Law’, in Bentley, J.H., Subrahmanyam, S. and Wiesner-Hanks, M.E. (eds.), Cambridge History of the World (2015), Vol. 6(II), 80Google Scholar.

8 A.L. LaCroix, The Ideological Origins of American Federalism (2010); D.C. Hendrickson, Peace Pact: The Lost World of the American Founding (2006).

9 D. Armitage, The Declaration of Independence: A Global History (2007); Hulsebosch, D. and Golove, D., ‘A Civilized Nation: The Early American Constitution, the Law of Nations, and the Pursuit of International Recognition’, (2010) 85 (4) New York University Law Review 932Google Scholar.

10 Benton and Ford, supra note 6.

11 For example, Mirow, M., ‘The Power of Codification in Latin America: Simón Bolívar and the Code Napoléon’, (2000) 8 Tulane Journal of International and Comparative Law 83Google Scholar; Nadelmann, E.A., ‘Global Prohibition Regimes: The Evolution of Norms in International Society’, (1990) 44 (4) International Organization 479CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12 For just one example among many see Hussain, I., ‘Circulations of Law: Cosmopolitan Elites, Global Repertoires, Local Vernaculars’, in Hussain, I. and Mawani, R. (eds.), ‘Forum: Indian Ocean Circuits of Law’, special issue, (2014) 32 (4) Law and History Review 773CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

13 T. Kayaoğlu, Legal Imperialism: Sovereignty and Extraterritoriality in Japan, the Ottoman Empire, and China (2014); L. Chen, Chinese Law in Imperial Eyes: Sovereignty, Justice, and Transcultural Politics (2015).

14 J. Burbank and F. Cooper, Empires in World History: Power and the Politics of Difference (2011); L. Benton and R.J. Ross (eds.), Legal Pluralism and Empires, 1500-1850 (2013); Benton and Ford, supra note 6, Chapter 6.

15 S. Belmessous, Empire by Treaty: Negotiating European Expansion, 1600-1900 (2015); Chen, supra note 13.

16 Benton, L. and Clulow, A., ‘Empires and Protection: Making Interpolity Law in the Early Modern World’, (2017) 12 (1) Journal of Global History 74CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

17 W.G. Grewe, The Epochs of International Law, (translated by M. Byers) (2000); see the critique of Grewe in Benton and Ford, supra note 6, at 19–20.

18 R.B.J. Walker, Inside/Outside: International Relations as Political Theory (1993); A.S. Brett, Changes of State: Nature and the Limits of the City in Early Modern Natural Law (2011).

19 Benton and Ford, supra note 6, Ch. 7.

20 See especially Burbank, J., ‘An Imperial Rights Regime: Law and Citizenship in the Russian Empire’ (2006) 7 (3) Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History 397CrossRefGoogle Scholar; J. Pitts, Boundaries of the International: Law and Empire (2018).

21 Armitage, supra note 9; M. Ghachem, The Old Regime and the Haitian Revolution (2012).

22 A. Orford, International Authority and the Responsibility to Protect (2011); Benton and Ford, supra note 6, Ch. 7; L. Benton, A. Clulow and B. Attwood (eds.), Protection and Empire: A Global History (2017).