In the interwar years, international lawyer James Brown Scott wrote a series of works on the history of his discipline. He made the case that the foundation of modern international law rested not, as most assumed, with the seventeenth-century Dutch thinker Hugo Grotius, but with sixteenth-century Spanish theologian Francisco de Vitoria. Far from being an antiquarian assertion, the Spanish origin narrative placed the inception of international law in the context of the discovery of America, rather than in the European wars of religion. The recognition of equal rights to the American natives by Vitoria was the pedigree on which Scott built a progressive international law, responsive to the rise of the United States as the leading global power and developments in international organization such as the creation of the League of Nations. This book describes the Spanish origin project in context, relying on Scott's biography, changes in the self-understanding of the international legal profession, as well as on larger social and political trends in US and global history. Keeping in mind Vitoria's persisting role as a key figure in the canon of international legal history, the book sheds light on the contingency of shared assumptions about the discipline and their unspoken implications. The legacy of the international law Scott developed for the American century is still with the profession today, in the shape of the normalization and de-politicization of rights language and of key concepts like equality and rule of law.
Author(s): Paolo Amorosa
Series: The History And Theory Of International Law
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Year: 2019
Language: English
Pages: 369
Tags: Law: International Law: Public International Law, Law: International Law: Public International Law, Law: International Law: Public International Law: International Law & International Relations
Cover......Page 1
Series......Page 3
Rewriting the History of the Law of Nations......Page 4
Copyright......Page 5
Table of Contents......Page 12
List of Abbreviations......Page 16
1. The Research Question and its Relevance to Current Debates on
the History of International Law......Page 18
2. Earlier Scholarship on Scott......Page 21
3. Scott’s Spanish Origin, Equality, and the Canon of International
Legal History......Page 23
4. Descriptive Writing and Language Choices......Page 27
5. Structure and Outline of Chapters......Page 29
Prologue. The Education of James Brown Scott, 1866–1896......Page 34
1. Jimmy the Book Snatcher......Page 36
2. “To Freeman Snow who first taught me to love International Law
and, in doing so, to love him.”......Page 37
3. “Between ourselves, I have been delivering that address ever since”......Page 39
PART I THE RISE AND FALL OF JAMES BROWN SCOTT AND THE TURN TO UNITED STATES HISTORY, 1898– 1921......Page 48
A Different Kind of World Power......Page 50
Mainstreaming International Law......Page 55
The American International Law Reshaping Foreign Policy: Scott at the State Department......Page 59
Jumpstarting a Powerhouse: Scott at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace......Page 62
Scott’s Early Projects at CEIP......Page 66
Scott’s Turn to History and the New World Order......Page 71
2 International Law as Faith. The Cuban Intervention and
the Narrative of 1898......Page 74
1. James Brown Scott in Havana: International Law and the
Selfless Empire......Page 75
Science, International Law, and the Social Context: The Platt Amendment as Equality......Page 78
Before the War: Public Opinion, Humanitarianism, and Religious Discourse......Page 81
International Law as Civilization and the Religious Discourse: The
Platt Amendment as Selflessness......Page 87
Messianism and Ingratitude......Page 89
The Platt Amendment and the Soul of America......Page 94
3 International Law as Science. Scott’s Historical Case for Adjudication and the Fight against Collective Security......Page 104
1. The Armistice Books and the Science of International Adjudication......Page 105
James Brown Scott and the Politics of the American Constitution......Page 107
The Case Method and the Ideology of Legal Evolution......Page 110
International Law as Law......Page 116
Public Opinion as Sanction: The Case for Adjudication against
Collective Security......Page 120
Universal Rule of Law and American Expansionism......Page 125
Imperialism and Equality......Page 127
The Emergence of Collective Security and the League to
Enforce Peace......Page 131
Fighting Collective Security within the Administration: Scott and Lansing versus Wilson......Page 136
Defeating the Covenant in the Senate: Root versus Wilson......Page 138
PART II REWRITING INTERNATIONAL LEGAL HISTORY: VITORIA AND THE NEW WORLD, 1925–1939......Page 142
Setting the Canon: The Inception of the Classics of International
Law Series......Page 144
Turning to Salamanca: Scott’s Evolving Thought and the
Early Classics......Page 149
Scott and the Salamanca Scholars......Page 153
The Dutch Connection: From The Hague to Salamanca......Page 157
The Making of Founders: From Grotius to Vitoria......Page 163
Diverging Formulations of Postwar International Law: Scott’s
Declining Position in the US Professional Community......Page 168
Vitoria at Georgetown: Scott’s 1926 Course on the Founders of International Law......Page 171
“Spain, for me the Holy Land of International Law”: Scott’s 1927 First Visit to Salamanca......Page 178
Putting the Argument on Paper: Scott’s First Book on the
Spanish Origin......Page 184
Vitoria and the Modern International Law......Page 189
Suárez and the Philosophy of International Law......Page 195
“The Ripened Fruit”: The Spanish Origin Campaign
Looking Forward......Page 200
American Catholicism at the Turn of the Twentieth Century......Page 203
CEIP and the Pontifical Letter of 1911......Page 208
Neo-Scholasticism and US Democracy......Page 216
CEIP and the Reorganization of the Vatican Library......Page 221
Building the Alliance: The American Committee for the Vitoria Celebrations......Page 228
The Vatican’s Universal Sovereignty......Page 232
The Inception of the Vitoria-Suárez Association between Academic
Neo-Scholasticism and Catholic Activism......Page 235
The Catholic Conception as a Collective Scholarly Enterprise......Page 239
Establishing the Catholic Conception: The Genealogy of Tyrannicide and the Salamancan Theories of International Organization......Page 242
The Scott-Walsh Memorandum......Page 248
The Catholic Conception and the Approaching War......Page 254
The Conservative Legacy of the Catholic Conception......Page 258
A Room of Their Own......Page 262
Feminism and the Suffrage Movement in the United States......Page 265
“A Party to Free their Own Sex”: The Anti-Democratic Campaigns
and the Birth of the National Woman’s Party......Page 269
“Jailed for Freedom”: Paul, Stevens, and the
Nineteenth Amendment......Page 272
Internationalist Feminism and Early Approaches to Scott......Page 277
Scott and the Principle of Independent Nationality......Page 283
The National Woman’s Party in the 1920s: From Suffrage to
Equal Rights......Page 295
The 1928 Pan-American Conference and the Beginning of the
Scott–Stevens Collaboration......Page 300
“Unprogressive Codification of Nationality at The Hague”......Page 309
Victory at Montevideo: Scott and the Stevens Treaties......Page 316
Vitoria and the Equal Rights Treaties: The Unbearable Lightness
of Scott’s Equality......Page 322
Concluding Remarks. The Legacy of James Brown Scott and the Responsibilities of International Legal History......Page 329
Bibliography......Page 338
Index......Page 356
