Vitoria and us : thoughts on critical histories of international law

  • How to write (international) legal histories that would be true to their protagonists while simultaneously relevant to present audiences? Most of us would also want to write "critically" – that is to say, at least by aiming to avoid Eurocentrism, hagiography and commitment to an altogether old-fashioned view of international law as an instrument of progress. Hence we write today our histories "in context". But this cannot be all. Framing the relevant "context" is only possible by drawing upon more or less conscious jurisprudential and political preferences. Should attention be focused on academic debates, military power, class structures or assumptions about the longue durée? Such choices determine for us what we think of as relevant "contexts", and engage us as participants in large conversations about law and power that are not only about what once "was" but also what there will be in the future.

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Metadaten
Author:Martti Koskenniemi
URN:urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-545967
DOI:https://doi.org/10.12946/rg22/119-138
ISSN:1619-4993
ISSN:2195-9617
Parent Title (Multiple languages):Rechtsgeschichte = Legal history
Publisher:Max-Planck-Inst. für Europäische Rechtsgeschichte
Place of publication:Frankfurt, M.
Contributor(s):Thomas Duve
Document Type:Article
Language:English
Year of Completion:2014
Year of first Publication:2014
Publishing Institution:Universitätsbibliothek Johann Christian Senckenberg
Release Date:2020/04/08
Volume:22
Page Number:22
First Page:119
Last Page:138
Note:
Dieser Beitrag steht unter einer Creative Commons cc-by-nc-nd 3.0
HeBIS-PPN:464134765
Institutes:Exzellenzcluster / Exzellenzcluster Die Herausbildung normativer Ordnungen
Dewey Decimal Classification:3 Sozialwissenschaften / 34 Recht / 340 Recht
Sammlungen:Universitätspublikationen
Licence (German):License LogoCreative Commons - Namensnennung-Nicht kommerziell-Keine Bearbeitung 3.0