This book narrates the important role that international law has played in America and the crucial if complex story of America's place in promoting and frustrating international law. Based on the stories of key figures in American history and written in an accessible style, it is a must read for anyone interested in America's place in the world.

Covers the entire range of the history of U.S. foreign relations from the colonial period to the beginning of the 21st century. A Companion to U.S. Foreign Relations is an authoritative guide to past and present scholarship on the history of American diplomacy and foreign relations from its seventeenth century origins to the modern day. This two-volume reference work presents a collection of historiographical essays by prominent scholars. The essays explore three centuries of America’s global interactions and the ways U.S. foreign policies have been analyzed and interpreted over time. Scholars offer fresh perspectives on the history of U.S. foreign relations; analyze the causes, influences, and consequences of major foreign policy decisions; and address contemporary debates surrounding the practice of American power. The Companion covers a wide variety of methodologies, integrating political, military, economic, social and cultural history to explore the ideas and events that shaped U.S. diplomacy and foreign relations and continue to influence national identity. The essays discuss topics such as the links between U.S. foreign relations and the study of ideology, race, gender, and religion; Native American history, expansion, and imperialism; industrialization and modernization; domestic and international politics; and the United States’ role in decolonization, globalization, and the Cold War. A comprehensive approach to understanding the history, influences, and drivers of U.S. foreign relation, this indispensable resource: Examines significant foreign policy events and their subsequent interpretations Places key figures and policies in their historical, national, and international contexts Provides background on recent and current debates in U.S. foreign policy Explores the historiography and primary sources for each topic Covers the development of diverse themes and methodologies in histories of U.S. foreign policy Offering scholars, teachers, and students unmatched chronological breadth and analytical depth, A Companion to U.S. Foreign Relations: Colonial Era to the Present is an important contribution to scholarship on the history of America’s interactions with the world.

In The Law of Nations in Early American Foreign Policy, Willem Theo Oosterveld provides the first general study of international law as interpreted and applied by the generation of the Founding Fathers. A mostly neglected aspect in the historiography of the early republic, this study argues that international law was in fact an integral part of the Revolutionary creed. Taking the reader from colonial debates about the law of nations to the discussions about slavery in the early 19th century, this study shows the zest of the Founders to conduct foreign policy on the basis of treatises such as Vattel’s The Law of Nations. But it also highlights the deep ambiguities and sometimes personal struggles that arose when applying international law.

Revised and updated for the first time in fifty years, this new edition of a classic text of international law provides the ideal introduction to the field for students and scholars alike. It introduces the key themes and ideas within international law in concise, clear language, building on Brierly's idea that law must serve a social purpose.

This concise book is an introduction to the role of international law in international relations. Written for lawyers and non-lawyers alike, the book first appeared in 1928 and attracted a wide readership. This new edition builds on Brierly's scholarship and his idea that law must serve a social purpose. Previous editions of The Law of Nations have been the standard introduction to international law for decades, and are widely popular in many different countries due to the simplicity and brevity of the prose style. Providing a comprehensive overview of international law, this new version of the classic book retains the original qualities and is again essential reading for all those interested in learning what role the law plays in international affairs. The reader will find chapters on traditional and contemporary topics such as: the basis of international obligation, the role of the UN and the International Criminal Court, the emergence of new states, the acquisition of territory, the principles covering national jurisdiction and immunities, the law of treaties, the different ways of settling international disputes, and the rules on resort to force and the prohibition of aggression.

International law has played a crucial role in the construction of imperial projects. Yet within the growing field of studies about the history of international law and empire, scholars have seldom considered this complicit relationship in the Americas. The Hidden History of International Law in the Americas offers the first exploration of the deployment of international law for the legitimization of U.S. ascendancy as an informal empire in Latin America. This book explores the intellectual history of a distinctive idea of American international law in the Americas, focusing principally on the evolution of the American Institute of International Law (AIIL). This organization was created by U.S. and Chilean jurists James Brown Scott and Alejandro Alvarez in Washington D.C. for the construction, development, and codification of international law across the Americas. Juan Pablo Scarfi examines the debates sparked by the AIIL over American international law, intervention and non-intervention, Pan-Americanism, the codification of public and private international law and the nature and scope of the Monroe Doctrine, as well as the international legal thought of Scott, Alvarez, and a number of jurists, diplomats, politicians, and intellectuals from the Americas. Professor Scarfi argues that American international law, as advanced primarily by the AIIL, was driven by a U.S.-led imperial aspiration of civilizing Latin America through the promotion of the international rule of law. By providing a convincing critical account of the legal and historical foundations of the Inter-American System, this book will stimulate debate among international lawyers, IR scholars, political scientists, and intellectual historians.

This volume critically reassesses the history and impact of international law in Italy. It examines how Italy's engagement with international law has been influenced and cross-fertilized by global dynamics, in terms of theories, methodologies, or professional networks. It asks to what extent historical and political turning points influenced this engagement, especially where scholars were part of broader academic and public debates or even active participants in the role of legal advisers or politicians. It explores how international law was used or misused by relevant actors in such contexts. Bringing together scholars specialized in international law and legal history, this volume first provides a historical examination of the theoretical legal analysis produced in the Italian context, exploring its main features, and dissident voices. The second section assesses the impact on international law studies of key historical and political events involving Italy, both international and domestically; and, conversely, how such events influenced perceptions of international law. Finally, a concluding section places the preceding analysis within a broader, contemporary perspective. This volume weighs in on in the growing debate on the need to explore international law from comparative and local viewpoints. It shows how regional, national, and local contexts have contributed to shaping international legal rules, institutions, and doctrines; and how these in turn influenced local solutions.

The post-WWI crisis of statelessness induced creative legal thinking, as officials and jurists debated cosmopolitan citizenship beyond the borders of sovereigns. But by midcentury the state won out as the lone site of citizenship. Mira Siegelberg uncovers the ideological roots of this transformation and its impact on the international order.

America's empire expanded dramatically following the Spanish-American War of 1898. The United States quickly annexed the Philippines and Puerto Rico, seized control over Cuba and the Panama Canal Zone, and extended political and financial power throughout Latin America. This age of empire, Benjamin Allen Coates argues, was also an age of international law. Justifying America's empire with the language of law and civilization, international lawyers-serving simultaneously as academics, leaders of the legal profession, corporate attorneys, and high-ranking government officials-became central to the conceptualization, conduct, and rationalization of US foreign policy. Just as international law shaped empire, so too did empire shape international law. Legalist Empire shows how the American Society of International Law was animated by the same notions of "civilization" that justified the expansion of empire overseas. Using the private papers and published writings of such figures as Elihu Root, John Bassett Moore, and James Brown Scott, Coates shows how the newly-created international law profession merged European influences with trends in American jurisprudence, while appealing to elite notions of order, reform, and American identity. By projecting an image of the United States as a unique force for law and civilization, legalists reconciled American exceptionalism, empire, and an international rule of law. Under their influence the nation became the world's leading advocate for the creation of an international court. Although the legalist vision of world peace through voluntary adjudication foundered in the interwar period, international lawyers-through their ideas and their presence in halls of power-continue to infuse vital debates about America's global role

This book deals with the history and future of the concept of ‘world peace through law’ (WPTL), which advocates replacing the use of international force with the global rule of law. WPTL calls for replacing war with the global rule of law by arms reductions, including the abolition of nuclear weapons, global alternative dispute resolution mechanisms, and various enforcement mechanisms. This book sets forth a three-part proposal: 1) arms reductions – primarily the abolition of nuclear weapons, with necessarily concomitant reductions in conventional forces; 2) a four-stage system of global alternative dispute resolution (ADR), utilizing both law and equity; 3) adequate enforcement mechanisms, including a UN Peace Force. The core of this proposal is alternative dispute resolution mechanisms—international ADR. International ADR would consist of a four-stage process of compulsory negotiation, compulsory mediation, compulsory arbitration., and compulsory adjudication by the World Court. The fundamental proposition of this book is that the use of alternatives to war, global ADR, is the ultimate solution to the problem of peace. The full implementation of WPTL will entail a vast array of progressive initiatives on many fronts, including abolition of nuclear weapons, with the global rule of law being the capstone to all of these developments. This book will be of great interest to students of peace studies, arms control, international law, and world politics.