Talk:Public International Law/History of International Law/Founding Myths

Review: May 11, 2023
Overall, the chapter offered a novel perspective on a subject that is often covered only in its classical notion in traditional textbooks. By engaging critically with the history of international law and seeking out diverse viewpoints, you are building a more comprehensive understanding of the history of international law.

Sometimes, the chapter seems to be a little unstructured in places, because you alternate between Grotius, development after Grotius and modern/critical perspectives on Grotius. In this context, it was still a little unclear to me what Grotius is responsible for and what Grotius' time is responsible for. Also, I have the feeling that some parts of the chapter (especially in the introduction) are a bit presuppositional for students without knowledge of (the history of) international law. You will find some comments in your chapter in which I elaborate on this more specifically.

Besides that, I only have some minor comments regarding formalities: You could add some links to other chapters of the textbook (e.g., when writing about treaties, states or sovereignty). Also, requiered knowledge and a summary is still missing.

I really enjoyed reading the chapter and I am very happy that we have integrated your perspective on the history of international la into our textbook. Max Milas (discuss • contribs) 19:38, 11 May 2023 (UTC)

Review May 2023
Dear Sué, This is a great chapter. Only small comment: I wonder whether it is a bit "voraussetzungsreich" and difficult to follow for students reading a textbook. Maybe it would make the reading easier to understand if you introduce some of the basic assumptions first, really keeping in mind that there are students really learning for the first time some of the "historic facts" such as the peace of Westphalia etc. I know that this is not an easy task since we explicitly don't want to simply "add" a critical layer to the traditional discourse, but I do think a bit of clearer guidance is necessary in the otherwise very rich chapter. Best, Raffaela --Raffaela Kunz (discuss • contribs) 07:24, 16 May 2023 (UTC)

Summary First Draft
The parts on Grotius and on Westphalia that are already there are supposed to be the main parts of the chapter. I know that they are probably too long and some paragraphs will have to be shortened and/or moved into an 'advanced knowledge' box. I would appreciate some feedback on which parts you deem essential and which parts need to be cut. I want to add a paragraph on Christine de Pizan in the 'Mothers of International Law' section and am still struggling with who else to include. I got a few wonderful suggestions for female academics whose works I can cite in this section, but I would still appreciate more pointers on FLINT voices, especially from the Global South. Sué González Hauck (discuss • contribs) 07:12, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

Review October 2021
Hi Sué,

So first off, what I said with regard to an earlier draft still holds true – I think this is an excellent chapter to include in the textbook and I love how it looks so far (including the recurring themes in the subtitles and the cheeky use of ‘discovering’ ;-)).

I don’t really have any definite suggestions, just a few thoughts which may or may not be helpful – all of this is very much in the spirit of ‘just see if it resonates and otherwise discard’.

In parts, especially the long third paragraph in section I.1., I wonder whether it might be a little difficult for undergrad students to follow. Perhaps I’m also underestimating them. One silly little formal aspect that struck me is that you mention a lot of academics, politicians etc. by name in the text and that some students might not be able to place who they are or whether they are specifically important. It might help to (very briefly of course) give some background for some people and not specifically name others except in the footnotes?

Another thing I was wondering about is whether it might be helpful to clarify even more clearly at the outset what you mean by founding myths and why this subchapter deals with them (e.g. understanding their function in upholding certain normative views of international law), as well as perhaps the methodology this implies (e.g. more historiography than history).

With regard to your question as to where best to shorten, building on those two points I think my feeling would be to retain or even expand on the broad strokes (what’s the narrative provided by these particular founding myths and why is that relevant or problematic) and shorten the more detailed discussions, e.g. fewer examples of specific invocations or critiques of Grotius. For what it’s worth, it doesn’t currently read as too long to me – I don’t know what word count you’re aiming for and currently at, though.

By the way, I recently had to think of you while reading Gurminder Bhambra’s Rethinking Modernity which I think might be good resource for this chapter (e.g. at p. 148 on Westphalia and the Haitian Revolution). You probably know it already, but just in case.

And finally, on a less serious note: for the question "Are we, international lawyers, the good guys?", please, please, please make good use of the online format and link to the “are we the baddies?” meme :D

Jens Theilen (discuss • contribs) 10:22, 22 October 2021 (UTC)


 * Hi Sué,
 * I like what is being done in this section and echo Jens' feedback. I think that it reads clearly and easily and gives a great overview of the Eurocentric and colonial legacy and history of international law. My main comment would be that I think that also adding a paragraph on the way that Britain used the fear of the Royal Navy after the Napoleonic wars to assert British Imperial law as international law and how that shaped a significant amount of modern international would be worthwhile. TamsinPaige (discuss • contribs) 03:54, 8 November 2021 (UTC)

Review December 2021
—General comments— Hi Sué,

In my opinion, this section’s core ideas and structure are already well-advanced and fitted to the purpose of the textbook.

I have some remarks that are not aimed at discussing the overall text anew, since I think that substantially at this stage, content is really-well brought forward. Furthermore given applicable constraints, I will not recommend to change it to drastically at this stage.

There will indeed be maybe possibilities at a later stage to change the text, in light of other contributions for the chapter in which this section is located, as well as the rest of the textbook.

As a general criticism, I would like to stress that it might be both necessary to cut some parts of the text and to expand a bit some developments, in order to better introduce them to an audience of readers not advanced in the general aspects of the history and theory of international law. Indeed, some references might get lost for those readers, as some parts of the text intervene at times without much introduction as to the context and general meaning of the references used (see for examples, my specific comments in the next section of my review).

—General comments—

-Section A-

Perspective for the chapter is really nicely brought forward!

Perhaps more references are needed for this section, even if Anne Orford's text is surely a good reference for your purpose. Additional references could include the usual suspect, Koskiennemi (his 2019 EJIL paper), but also for instance: •	Anne-Marie Slaughter & William Burke-White, “An International Constitutional Moment”, Harvard International Law Journal, 2002, Vol. 43, No. 1, pp. 1-22. •	Renée Jeffery, Hugo Grotius in International Thought, Palgrave Macmillan, 2006, viii-216p. •	Randall Lesaffer, “The Grotian Tradition Revisited: Change and Continuity in the History of International Law”, British Yearbook of International Law, 2002, Vol. 73, No. 1, pp. 103-139. •	John T. Parry, “What is the Grotian tradition in international law”, University of Pennsylvania Journal of International Law, 2014, Vol. 25, No. 2, pp. 299-377

-Section B-

1. Perhaps a bit too descriptive on Grotius itself in the first paragraph (given space constraint if you need to save words, I will try to cut here or make it more synthetic). Against that backdrop, the question is in my view: what are the function and meaning of the details of Grotius’ live for the purpose of that section on ‘founding myths’. Surely, it makes sense to explain about his person, since this section is referring to the myth of the Grotian origin of international law. However, there are not so much space available for that, so I would suggest to instead expand and reinforce other general substantial notions of your argumentation in that section (for instance, by being a bit more didactic and so forth).

Also, this section could need more references (as for Section A).

I will in any case cite the seminal article from Lauterpacht on The Grotian Tradition (or if that’s already the case, more prominently) because he has according to some later authors, sort of actually establish or re-establish the centrality of the Grotian myth in international law, despite the fact that his article is partly critical analysis.  H Lauterpacht, "The Grotian Tradition in International Law" (1946) 23 Brit YB Int'l L 1

Also, it might worth it to expand a bit more (not too long as well) on the notion of Grotian moment, by referring to both work from Richard Falk and B.S. Chimini in that regard (Richard Falk, “The Grotian Quest” in Richard Fallk, Friedriech V. Kratochwill and Saul H. Mendolovitz (eds.), International Law: A Contemporary Perspective, Boulder (Colorado), Westview Press, 1985, xiii-702p., pp. 36-42; B.S. Chimni, “A Just World Under Law: A View from the South”, American University International Law Review, 2007, Vol. 22, No. 2, pp. 199-220, p. 201). In my view, since you want to engage with Grotius' alleged contribution to the foundation of international law in that section -- what makes naturally completely sense given its object --, it would be important to distinguish the notion of Grotian moment from the notion of Grotian tradition.

The notion of liberal internationalism is really important in my eyes, and it will need some further words and references. You could maybe refer to something about that in the article from Lauterpacht. At a later stage, it could be also pertinent to see whether other contributions in this project are not also dealing with this core notion of liberal internationalism (cross-references could be then considered/operated).

2nd para.: Very well explained, good references and important point. BUT it might be a bit hard to grasp the idea for readers without proper background in international law, or at least as to the history and theory of international law.

3rd para.: I will recommend to expand a bit your argument. But the end is very nice and important. It would be nice to maybe find a way to bring beforehand an improved explanation of the importance of the so-called Grotian moments or Grotian tradition in IL for the founding myths of this discipline.

-Section B- 2.

Important but a bit short and the importance of Francisco de Vitoria should be in my view more stressed, beyond the fact that it is systematically referred to as “the competitor of Grotius” as “father of international law”. Of course, it might be delicate given space constraints, but I still think that few additional lines on that could be useful. More generally, it might be interesting to refer to Onuma Yasuiki on the problematic of international law's founding fathers, as he deals with it in his last monograph (Onuma Yasuaki, International Law in a Transcivilizational World (CUP; 2017)).

For instance, this line is going to fast and a student or somebody new to the field might got lost with the meaning of the importance of that debate (last line of the paragraph): “The question of whether Vitoria was using ius gentium to condemn or at least reign in colonial violence or whether he was actually justifying and thereby enabling it is a hotly debated question. This question is debated so fiercely, because it is equated with the question of whether international law has been, from the beginning, humanitarian or imperialist in nature.”

3.  This is in my view as it stands, far too short. Also I am unsure about just referring to the cited author. It is surely interesting but it might more pertinent to add a larger analytical/critical point on what it means for the traditional "genealogy" of international law. More contextualization could help in this regard. In addition, I wonder whether this section's approach based on the classical rhetoric of “fathers of international law”, really deserve to structure this sub-section, even if it is clearly criticised.

Section II

Really nice to bring that fact. However, it is perhaps still too brief to counter-balance the importance given (via the framing of the structure of this section) to the fathers of international law.

One simple question can be asked, namely whether international law really needs to have so-called fathers and mothers. But you see of course.

Section III Very nicely written, but maybe there is sightly too much importance granted to the figure of Gross?. (My knowledge on that is far too limited, and you are the specialist! So maybe it is not such a relevant remark. The second paragraph is really well brought forward and important. For me, it will make sense to expand it a bit, in an analytical and didactic fashion, and in that aim, to operate some cuts in the upper part of the section.

If it is useful to you, I can send you all the references that I have mentioned in this review, and also possibly suggest more names.

Great work! Thanks for your contribution. --MilTahr (discuss • contribs) 15:33, 11 December 2021 (UTC)