Thursday, April 19, 2018

Alexandrowicz on international law

David Armitage, Harvard University and Jennifer Pitts, University of Chicago, have co-edited C. H. Alexandrowicz's The Law of Nations in Global History, published with Oxford University Press. From the publisher:
Cover for 

The Law of Nations in Global History






The history and theory of international law have been transformed in recent years by post-colonial and post-imperial critiques of the universalistic claims of Western international law. The origins of those critiques lie in the often overlooked work of the remarkable Polish-British lawyer-historian C. H. Alexandrowicz (1902-75). This volume collects Alexandrowicz's shorter historical writings, on subjects from the law of nations in pre-colonial India to the New International Economic Order of the 1970s, and presents them as a challenging portrait of early modern and modern world history seen through the lens of the law of nations.
The book includes the first complete bibliography of Alexandrowicz's writings and the first biographical and critical introduction to his life and works. It reveals the formative influence of his Polish roots and early work on canon law for his later scholarship undertaken in Madras (1951-61) and Sydney (1961-67) and the development of his thought regarding sovereignty, statehood, self-determination, and legal personality, among many other topics still of urgent interest to international lawyers, political theorists, and global historians.
Praise for the book:

"Charles Henry Alexandrowicz (1902-1975) was among the few who recognized the presence of multiple international, or regional, legal systems on the planet co-terminus with European international law. That a superhuman effort was required to trace his numerous publications is further evidence of how valuable this collection is." - Jus Gentium

Table of Contents after the jump.

  • 'This Modern Grotius': An Introduction to the Life and Thought of C.H. Alexandrowicz, David Armitage and Jennifer Pitts
  • PART ONE: THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE LAW OF NATIONS
    • Kautilyan Principles and the Law of Nations (1965-66)
    • Paulus Vladimiri and the Development of the Doctrine of the Coexistence of Christian and Non-Christian Countries (1963)
    • Mogul Sovereignty and the Law of Nations (1955)
  • PART TWO: ASIA AND THE LAW OF NATIONS
    • 'Jus Gentium' and the Law of Nature in Asia (1956)
    • Some Problems in the History of the Law of Nations in Asia (1963)
    • Le Droit des Nations aux Indes Orientales: Aux XVIe, XVIIe, XVIIIe siecles (1964)
    • Grotius and India (1954)
    • Freitas Versus Grotius (1959)
    • The Discriminatory Clause in South Asian Treaties in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (1957)
    • A Persian-Dutch Treaty in the Seventeenth Century (1958)
    • Puffendorf-Crull and the Afro-Asian World (1968-69)
    • A Treatise by J. H. G. Justi on Asian Government (1960-61)
    • Doctrinal Aspects of the Universality of the Law of Nations (1961)
    • G. F. de Martens on Asian Treaty Practice (1964)
    • The Continuity of the Sovereign Status of China in International Law (1956)
    • The Legal Position of Tibet (1954)
    • Is India a Federation? (1954)
  • PART THREE: AFRICA AND THE LAW OF NATIONS
    • Le Rôle des Traités dans les Relations entre les Puissances Européennes et les Souverains Africains (Aspects historiques) (1970)
    • The Partition of Africa by Treaty (1974)
    • The Role of Treaties in the European-African Confrontation in the Nineteenth Century (1975)
    • The Role of German Treaty Making in the Partition of Africa (1980)
    • The Juridical Expression of the Sacred Trust of Civilization (1971)
  • PART FOUR: THE RECOGNITION OF NEW STATES IN INTERNATIONAL LAW
    • Empirical and Doctrinal Positivism in International Law (1974-75)
    • The Theory of Recognition in Fieri (1958)
    • The Quasi-Judicial Function in the Recognition of States and Governments (1952)
    • Israel in Fieri (1951)
    • New and Original States: The Issue of Reversion to Sovereignty (1969)
    • The New States and International Law (1974)
    • The Charter of Economic Rights and Duties of States (1975)
  • Bibliography of the Writings of C. H. Alexandrowicz
Further information is available here.