The research period runs from the disappearance of the Ancien Régime to the outbreak of World War One and it reveals several striking developments in the theory and practice of international law:
The foundation of new international regimes for regulating social, political and economic issues and the formation of legal principles like the Fundamental Rights of/ for States (Grundrechte der Staaten, droits fondamentaux des États) and the International Community. The increasing impact of international organisations on international relations is also remarkable. Two further important features of international law are the change from coexistence to cooperation and an increase in the degree to which state relations are based on legal sources. These features are eventually interlinked with the occurrence of an overarching process of universalization in international law.
The explicit foundation of international relations on legal sources is being reflected, commented and even idealized by various contemporary authors, among whom should be mentioned Georg Friedrich von Martens, Theodor Schmalz, Jeremy Bentham, Julius Schmelzing, Friedrich Saalfeld, Carl Baron Kaltenborn von Stachau, Robert von Mohl, Henry Wheaton, August Wilhelm Heffter, Richard Wildman, August von Bulmerincq, Carl Bergbohm, Johann Caspar Bluntschli, Leopold Neumann, James Lorimer, Gustave Moynier, Theodore D. Woolsey, William Edward Hall, Fedor Fedorowitsch von Martens, Carlos Calvo, Henry Bonfils, Alphonse Rivier, Franz von Liszt, Robert Phillimore, John Westlake, Frantz Despagnet und Lassa Oppenheim. The founding of the Institut de Droit International in 1873 shows the impact of international laws’ legal theory.
One major ambition of our research is to analyze these contemporary scientific reflections. Has there been an interlinked relationship between the “self-inventing” international legal order and the scholars’ works? Which legal argumentation did they develop to support the institutionalization of international law in the course of the 19th century? The influence of international morality (Kristina Lovrić), the claim for equal treaties in East Asia and China (Stefan Kroll), the evolution of utopic communitarian concepts (Felix Benz), and the emergence and establishment of international legal principles (Miloš Vec) are closely interlinked to these reflections.
In the course of the five years research program several monographs are about to be published. For further information please visit our website: www.mpier.de/exc1
