BOOK: Stefan KADELBACH, Thomas KLEINLEIN and David ROTH-ISIGKEIT (eds.), System, Order, and International Law. The Early History of International Legal Thought from Machiavelli to Hegel. Oxford: OUP, ISBN 9780198768586. £ 80

(image source: OUP)

Oxford University Press announced the forthcoming publication of System, Order, and International Law. The Early History of International Legal Thought from Machiavelli to Hegel, edited by Stefan Kadelbach (Frankfurt), Thomas Kleinlein (Frankfurt) and David Roth-Isigkeit (Frankfurt).

Book abstract:

For many centuries, thinkers have tried to understand and to conceptualize political and legal order beyond the boundaries of sovereign territories. Their concepts, deeply entangled with ideas of theology, state formation, and human nature, form the bedrock of todays theoretical discourses on international law. This volume engages with models of early international legal thought from Machiavelli to Hegel before international law in the modern sense became an academic discipline of its own. The interplay of system and order serves as a leitmotiv throughout the book, helping to link historical models to contemporary discourse. Part I of the book covers a diverse collection of thinkers in order to scrutinize and contextualize their respective models of the international realm in light of general legal and political philosophy. Part II maps the historical development of international legal thought more generally by distilling common themes and ideas, such as the relationship between universality and particularity, the role of the state, the influence of power and economic interests on the law, and the contingencies of time, space and technical opportunities. In the current political climate, where it appears that the reinvigorated concept of the nation state as an ordering force competes with internationalist thinking, the problems at issue in the classic theories point to contemporary questions: is an international system without central power possible? How can a normative order come about if there is no central force to order relations between states? These essays show that uncovering the history of international law can offer ways in which to envisage its future.

Table of contents:

Introduction, Stefan Kadelbach, Thomas Kleinlein and David Roth-Isigkeit
Part I Authors
1: Niccolò Machiavelli's International Legal Thought: Culture, Contingency, and Construction, David Roth-Isigkeit
2: Francisco de Vitoria: A Redesign of Global Order on the Threshold of the Middle Ages to Modern Times, Kirstin Bunge
3: Francisco Suárez S. J. on the End of Peaceful Order among States and Systematic Doctrinal Scholarship, Tobias Schaffner
4: Jean Bodin on International Law, Merio Scattola
5: Alberico Gentili: Sovereignty, Natural Law, and the System of Roman Civil Law, Andreas Wagner
6: Althusius: Back to the Future, Thomas Hüglin
7: Hugo Grotius on the Conquest of Utopia by Systematic Reasoning, Stefan Kadelbach
8: Orders in disorder: The Question of a Sovereign State of Nature in Hobbes and Rousseau, Jonas Heller
9: The International Legal Argument in Spinoza, Tilman Altwicker
10: States as Ethico-Political Subjects of International Law: The Relationship between Theory and Practice in the International Politics of Samuel Pufendorf, Vanda Fiorillo
11: Christian Wolff: System as an Episode?, Thomas Kleinlein
12: The Law of the Nations as the Civil Law of the World: On Montesquieu's Political Cosmopolitanism, Christian Volk
13: Emer de Vattel on the Society of Nations and the Political System of Europe, Simone Zurbuchen
14: Towards a System of Sympathetic Law: Envisioning Adam Smith's Theory of Jurisprudence, Bastian Ronge
15: Systematicity to Excess Kant's Conception of the International Legal Order, Benedict Vischer
16: Fichte and the Echo of his Internationalist Thinking in Romanticism, Carla De Pascale
17: The Plurality of States and the World Order of Reason: On Hegel's Understanding of International Law and Relations, Sergio Dellavalle
Part II Perspectives on the Philosophy of International Law
18: What should the History of the Law of Nations Become?, Martti Koskenniemi
19: State Theory, State Order, State System: Ius Gentium and the constitution of Public Power, Nehal Bhuta
20: Spatial Perceptions, Juridical Practices, and Early International Legal Thought around 1500: From Tordesillas to Saragossa, Thomas Duve
21: The Disorder of Economy? The first Relectio de Indis in a Theological Perspective, Mónica García-Salmones
22: Power and Law as Ordering Devices in the System of International Relations, Gunther Hellmann
23: Universalism and Particularism: A Dichotomy to Read Theories on International Order, Armin von Bogdandy and Sergio Dellavalle
Some Brief Conclusions, Pierre-Marie Dupuy

 On the editors:

Stefan Kadelbach, Cluster of Excellence at Goethe University Frankfurt/Main, Thomas Kleinlein, Principal Investigator of the 'Federalism of Rights' research project (DFG, German Research Foundation) and Associate Member of 'Normative Orders', Cluster of Excellence at Goethe University Frankfurt/Main, and David Roth-Isigkeit, Cluster of Excellence at Goethe University Frankfurt/MainStefan Kadelbach is Professor of Public International Law and European Constitutional Law at Goethe University Frankfurt/Main and a Member of ' Normative Orders', Cluster of Excellence, a group of researchers from various disciplines funded by the German Research Foundation. His teaching and research covers general international law, the theory of international law, human rights, and European and German constitutional law.Thomas Kleinlein is Privatdozent at the Institute for Public Law and Associate Member of 'Normative Orders', Cluster of Excellence, at Goethe University Frankfurt/Main. He is the principal investigator of a research project funded by a grant from the German Research Foundation entitled Federalism of Rights: Perspectives of Dialogue and Pluralism in Multilevel Fundamental Rights Adjudication in Germany, the United States Compared. In the winter semester 2016/17, he is a visiting professor at Humboldt University Berlin.David Roth-Isigkeit is a Research Fellow at 'Normative Orders', Cluster of Excellence at Goethe University Frankfurt/Main.

More information on OUP's website.