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3100 BCE
Establishment of eternal peace and brotherhood.
Between Rameses II of Egypt and the king of the Hittites for the establishment of eternal peace and brotherhood. -
2100 BCE
Rulers of Lagash and Umma
For instance, a solemn treaty was signed between the rulers of Lagash and Umma. It was inscribed on a stone block and concerned the establishment of a defined boundary to be respected by both sides under pain of alienating a number of Sumerian gods. -
1503 BCE
Corpus Juris Civilis
The classical rules of Roman law were collated in the Corpus Juris Civilis, a compilation of legal material by a series of Byzantine philosophers completed in AD 534. -
1502 BCE
Jus Gentium
This provided simplified rules to govern the relations between foreigners, and between foreigners and citizens. -
1501 BCE
Jus Civile
The early Roman law (the jus civile) applied only to Roman citizens. -
1500 BCE
Classical Greece
Its critical and rational turn of mind, its constant questioning and analysis of man and nature and its love of argument and debate were spread throughout Europe and the Mediterranean -
1000 BCE
Before the birth of Christ
Many of the Hindu rules displayed a growing sense of morality and generosity and the Chinese Empire devoted much thought to harmonious relations between its constituent parts. -
201 BCE
Natural Law
This was formulated by the Stoic philosophers of the third century BC and their theory was that it constituted a body of rules of universal relevance. Such rules were rational and logical. -
1200
Law Merchant
English law established the Law Merchant, a code of rules covering foreign traders, and this was declared to be of universal. a network of common regulations and practices weaved its way across the commercial fabric of Europe and constituted an embryonic international trade law -
1453
Renaissance.
The introduction of printing during the fifteenth century provided the means to disseminate knowledge, and the undermining of feudalism in the wake of economic growth and the rise of the merchant classes provided the background to the new inquiring attitudes taking shape. -
Period: 1480 to 1546
Francisco Vitoria
He demonstrated a remarkably progressive attitude for his time towards the Spanish conquest of the South American Indians and, contrary to the views prevalent until then, maintained that the Indian peoples should be regarded as nations with their own legitimate interests -
1513
Staples of modern international life
emerged many of the staples of modern international life: diplomacy, statesmanship, the theory of the balance of power and the idea of a community of states. -
Period: 1548 to
Suárez
He noted that the obligatory character of international law was based upon Natural Law, while its substance derived from the Natural Law rule of carrying out agreements entered into. -
1576
The doctrine of sovereignty
This concept, first analysed systematically in 1576 in the Six Livres de la R´epublique by Jean Bodin, was intended to deal with the structure of authority within the modern state. -
1576
St Thomas Aquinas.
He maintained that Natural Law formed part of the law of God, and was the participation by rational creatures in the Eternal Law -
Period: to
Richard Zouche (positivist school)
He elevated the law of peace above a systematic consideration of the law of war and eschewed theoretical expositions. -
Alberico Gentili
His De Jure Belli was published.78 It is a comprehensive discussion of the law of war and contains a valuable section on the law of treaties -
Hugo Grotius
His primary work was the De Jure Belli ac Pacis. Grotius finally excised theology from international law and emphasised the irrelevance in such a study of any conception of a divine law. -
Period: to
Samuel Pufendorf ("Naturalist" school)
Who attempted to identify international law completely with the law of nature; and on the other hand there were the exponents of ‘positivism’, who distinguished between international law and Natural Law and emphasised practical problems and current state practices -
Peace of Westphalia
Positivism developed as the modern nation-state system emerged, after the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, from the religious wars. -
Period: to
Bynkershoek
He made great contributions to the developing theories of the rights and duties of neutrals in war, and after careful studies of the relevant facts decided in favour of the freedom of the seas -
Period: to
Vattel
His Droit des Gens. He introduced the doctrine of the equality of states into international law, declaring that a small republic was no less a sovereign than the most powerful kingdom, just as a dwarf was as much a man as a giant. -
Freedom of navigation
In 1815, the Final Act of the Congress of Vienna established the principle of freedom of navigation with regard to international waterways and set up a Central Commission of the Rhine to regulate its use. -
Commission for the Danube
Was created and a number of other European rivers also became the subject of international agreements and arrangements. -
Geneva Conventions
The International Committee of the Red Cross, founded in 1863, helped promote the series of Geneva Conventions beginning in 1864 dealing with the ‘humanisation’ of conflict, -
The International Telegraphic Union was established
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The Universal Postal Union.was established
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Pacta sunt servanda
The monists claimed that there was one fundamental principle which underlay both national and international law. This was variously posited as ‘right’ or social solidarity or the rule that agreements must be carried out (pacta sunt servanda). -
Permanent Court of Arbitration
The Hague Conferences of 1899 and 1907 established the Permanent Court of Arbitration and dealt with the treatment of prisoners and the control of warfare. -
League of Nations.
The most important legacy of the 1919 Peace Treaty from the point of view of international relations was the creation of the League of Nations. -
International Court of Justice.
The Permanent Court of International Justice was set up in 1921 at The Hague and was succeeded in 1946 by the International Court of Justice. -
The United Nations Organisation
After the trauma of the Second World War the League was succeeded in 1946 by the United Nations Organisation, which tried to remedy many of the defects of its predecessor. It established its site at New York, reflecting the realities of the shift of power away from Europe, and determined to become a truly universal institution -
The Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples
Enshrined the right of colonies to obtain their sovereignty with the least possible delay and called for the recognition of the principle of self-determination. -
The Soviet interventions in eastern Europe
In the Soviet view relations between socialist (communist) states represented a new, higher type of international relations and a socialist international law. -
Third World
This has thrust onto the scene states which carry with them a legacy of bitterness over their past status as well as a host of problems relating to their social, economic and political development. -
The dissolution of the Soviet Union
Marked the end of the Cold War and the re-emergence of a system of international relations based upon multiple sources of power untrammelled by ideological determinacy -
Globalization
Globalisation in the sense of interdependence of a high order of individuals, groups and corporations, both public and private, across national boundaries, might be seen as the universalisation of Western civilisation and thus the triumph of one special particularism.
