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
Edition: 1
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Year: 2019
Language: English
Commentary: TruePDF
Pages: 369
Tags: Scott, James Brown: 1866-1943; Vitoria, Francisco de: 1486?-1546; International Law: History
Cover
Series
Rewriting the History of the Law of Nations
Copyright
Table of Contents
List of Abbreviations
Introduction. An American Project
1. The Research Question and its Relevance to Current Debates on the History of International Law
2. Earlier Scholarship on Scott
3. Scott’s Spanish Origin, Equality, and the Canon of International Legal History
4. Descriptive Writing and Language Choices
5. Structure and Outline of Chapters
Prologue. The Education of James Brown Scott, 1866–1896
1. Jimmy the Book Snatcher
2. “To Freeman Snow who first taught me to love International Law and, in doing so, to love him.”
3. “Between ourselves, I have been delivering that address ever since”
PART I THE RISE AND FALL OF JAMES BROWN SCOTT AND THE TURN TO UNITED STATES HISTORY, 1898– 1921
1 Explaining Scott’s Turn to American History
1. Young Professional, 1898–1906
A Different Kind of World Power
Mainstreaming International Law
2. Root’s Legal Advisor, 1906–1910
The American International Law Reshaping Foreign Policy: Scott at the State Department
Jumpstarting a Powerhouse: Scott at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
3. Powerful Organizer, 1910–1917
Scott’s Early Projects at CEIP
Scott’s Turn to History and the New World Order
2 International Law as Faith. The Cuban Intervention and the Narrative of 1898
1. James Brown Scott in Havana: International Law and the Selfless Empire
Science, International Law, and the Social Context: The Platt Amendment as Equality
2. The Narrative of 1898: The Religious Foundation of the Cuban Intervention
Before the War: Public Opinion, Humanitarianism, and Religious Discourse
International Law as Civilization and the Religious Discourse: The Platt Amendment as Selflessness
3. “The Best Friend of Cuba”: Scott’s Messianism between Hegemony and Equality
Messianism and Ingratitude
The Platt Amendment and the Soul of America
3 International Law as Science. Scott’s Historical Case for Adjudication and the Fight against Collective Security
1. The Armistice Books and the Science of International Adjudication
James Brown Scott and the Politics of the American Constitution
The Case Method and the Ideology of Legal Evolution
International Law as Law
2. The United States as Universal History: Scott’s Recurring Themes in Legal Progress
Public Opinion as Sanction: The Case for Adjudication against Collective Security
Universal Rule of Law and American Expansionism
Imperialism and Equality
3. The Losing Quest against Collective Security and the Decline of Scott’s Legalism
The Emergence of Collective Security and the League to Enforce Peace
Fighting Collective Security within the Administration: Scott and Lansing versus Wilson
Defeating the Covenant in the Senate: Root versus Wilson
PART II REWRITING INTERNATIONAL LEGAL HISTORY: VITORIA AND THE NEW WORLD, 1925–1939
4 The Spanish Origin of International Law
1. The Spanish Origin’s Background
Setting the Canon: The Inception of the Classics of International Law Series
Turning to Salamanca: Scott’s Evolving Thought and the Early Classics
Scott and the Salamanca Scholars
2. Conceiving the Campaign: Scott’s Long Road to Salamanca
The Dutch Connection: From The Hague to Salamanca
The Making of Founders: From Grotius to Vitoria
Diverging Formulations of Postwar International Law: Scott’s Declining Position in the US Professional Community
Vitoria at Georgetown: Scott’s 1926 Course on the Founders of International Law
3. The Lessons of the Spanish Origin: Vitoria, Suárez, and the International Law of the Twentieth Century
“Spain, for me the Holy Land of International Law”: Scott’s 1927 First Visit to Salamanca
Putting the Argument on Paper: Scott’s First Book on the Spanish Origin
Vitoria and the Modern International Law
Suárez and the Philosophy of International Law
“The Ripened Fruit”: The Spanish Origin Campaign Looking Forward
5 The Catholic Conception of International Law
1. Early Approaches: Scott and the Catholic Church before the Great War
American Catholicism at the Turn of the Twentieth Century
CEIP and the Pontifical Letter of 1911
2. The Background of the Catholic Conception
Neo-Scholasticism and US Democracy
CEIP and the Reorganization of the Vatican Library
Building the Alliance: The American Committee for the Vitoria Celebrations
The Vatican’s Universal Sovereignty
The Inception of the Vitoria-Suárez Association between Academic Neo-Scholasticism and Catholic Activism
The Catholic Conception as a Collective Scholarly Enterprise
3. The Last Attempt: The Catholic Conception of International Law at the Vatican
Establishing the Catholic Conception: The Genealogy of Tyrannicide and the Salamancan Theories of International Organization
The Scott-Walsh Memorandum
The Catholic Conception and the Approaching War
The Conservative Legacy of the Catholic Conception
6 Apostles of Equality: James Brown Scott and the Feminist Cause
1. The Making of the US Feminist Movement and the National Woman’s Party
A Room of Their Own
Feminism and the Suffrage Movement in the United States
“A Party to Free their Own Sex”: The Anti-Democratic Campaigns and the Birth of the National Woman’s Party
“Jailed for Freedom”: Paul, Stevens, and the Nineteenth Amendment
2. From the National to the International, from Suffrage to Equal Rights
Internationalist Feminism and Early Approaches to Scott
Scott and the Principle of Independent Nationality
The National Woman’s Party in the 1920s: From Suffrage to Equal Rights
3. Scott and the International Equal Rights Campaign
The 1928 Pan-American Conference and the Beginning of the Scott–Stevens Collaboration
“Unprogressive Codification of Nationality at The Hague”
Victory at Montevideo: Scott and the Stevens Treaties
Vitoria and the Equal Rights Treaties: The Unbearable Lightness of Scott’s Equality
Concluding Remarks. The Legacy of James Brown Scott and the Responsibilities of International Legal History
Bibliography
Index
