Looking Forward Through and Beyond the Western Classics of International Law

Abstract

The study of the Western classics of international law with Francisco de Vitoria and Hugo Grotius at its core is the foundational stone on which the whole edifice of today's ever-expanding history of international law was built upon. The article provides a gateway to Vitoria and Grotius's significance for international law and its history by providing a tenfold list of attributes of what makes a classic of international law. It then examines the rise to pre-eminence of the study of the classics of international law and surveys the main methodological responses addressed to correcting the historiographical blind spots and large gaps in legal history that the privileging of these Western “great men” have triggered. The conclusion recaps the importance of looking forward through, but also beyond, the deeply West-centric and male-dominated intellectual canon of international law in an international order the centre of gravity of which is inexorably moving eastwards.