Mestizo International Law: A Global Intellectual History 1842–1933
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| Anteprima |
The
development of international law is conventionally understood as a
history in which the main characters (states and international lawyers)
and events (wars and peace conferences) are European. Arnulf Becker
Lorca demonstrates how non-Western states and lawyers appropriated
nineteenth-century classical thinking in order to defend new and better
rules governing non-Western states' international relations. By
internalizing the standard of civilization, for example, they argued for
the abrogation of unequal treaties. These appropriations contributed to
the globalization of international law. With the rise of modern legal
thinking and a stronger international community governed by law,
peripheral lawyers seized the opportunity and used the new discourse and
institutions such as the League of Nations to dissolve the standard of
civilization and codify non-intervention and self-determination. These
stories suggest that the history of our contemporary international legal
order is
not purely European; instead they suggest a history of a
mestizo international law.
