Camilla Boisen
New York University Abu Dhabi, Writing Program, Faculty Member
- Politics, Philosophy, Political Science, Human Rights, Ethics, Political Philosophy, and 30 morePolitical Theory, Philosophy Of Law, Intellectual History, Jurisprudence, History of Ideas, History of Political Thought, Modern History, Liberalism, South Africa, South Africa (History), Political Thought, Classification In Colonial Thought, International Relations Theory, History of International Thought, History, Education, International Relations, International Law, Teacher Education, History of International Law, International Political Theory, Victorian Studies, Imperialism, British Imperialism, British Imperial and Colonial History (1600 - ), History Of Political Thought (Political Science), History of Political Ideas, History of International Relations, British Empire, and Colonial Studiesedit
- Historian of political thoughtedit
Pufendorf is often purported as an early modern exemplar of legal positivism; perhaps unsurprising as his jurisprudence had some of the hallmarks of at least classical legal positivism: Law was conceptualised as command, it had to have an... more
Pufendorf is often purported as an early modern exemplar of legal positivism; perhaps unsurprising as his jurisprudence had some of the hallmarks of at least classical legal positivism: Law was conceptualised as command, it had to have an author, that is, the ‘binding of a superior’ to qualify as law and be enforceable. Pufendorf's repudiation of a distinct law of nations appears to be an important event in the development of international law that, on the one hand, opened up the international domain to legal positivism (as implied by its "redundancy"), yet, on the other, also elevated its status. But we are left to ponder what type of international order Pufendorf had in mind, and why he is still considered part of the history of international law. To understand his legacy, this chapter asks what Pufendorf hoped to accomplish through international law, and whether it aligns with our own aspirations? It claims that what is often overlooked in discussions of international legal thought is that Pufendorf offered a moral justification for certain state behaviours, without expecting those states to adhere to it. His concept of ‘international natural law’ was not intended to refute the complexity of issues between nations that cannot be resolved using conventional methods of enforcement, but rather to recognise it. Pufendorf thus shows us why a presumption of a moral impetuous has to lie at the bottom of international relations, but also emphasises the drawbacks of moral arguments that are not backed up by legality. His moral guidance concerning international law has been a source of discussion in times of crises, such as in the aftermath of both World Wars and continues to be revisited by legal scholars and historians of thought. Thus, this chapter also focuses on how Pufendorf's teachings shaped these discussions. Perhaps Pufendorf’s most enduring legacy for international law is setting up a dialectic convergence of naturalism and positivism that ultimately takes us to better questions about the limits of international justice.
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Pufendorf is often purported as an early modern exemplar of legal positivism. Law was conceptualized as command: it had to have an author (i.e. the ‘binding of a superior’) to qualify as law and be enforceable. Pufendorf’s repudiation of... more
Pufendorf is often purported as an early modern exemplar of legal positivism. Law was conceptualized as command: it had to have an author (i.e. the ‘binding of a superior’) to qualify as law and be enforceable. Pufendorf’s repudiation of a distinct law of nations appears to be an important event in the development of international law that, on the one hand, opened up the international domain to legal positivism, yet, on the other, also elevated its status. To understand his legacy, this chapter asks what Pufendorf hoped to accomplish through international law and whether it aligns with our own aspirations. His moral guidance concerning international law has been a source of discussion in times of crises, such as in the aftermath of both world wars, and continues to be revisited by legal scholars and historians of thought. Thus, this chapter also focuses on how Pufendorf’s teachings shaped these discussions.
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This article investigates the formal purpose of declaring wars for Hugo Grotius. Grotius was adamant that states always use justification in a duplicitous way to conceal their real motivation to go to war. As such, the purpose of... more
This article investigates the formal purpose of declaring wars for Hugo Grotius. Grotius was adamant that states always use justification in a duplicitous way to conceal their real motivation to go to war. As such, the purpose of declaration is not to assert the just cause of war. Rather, what any public declaration does, is provide recognition that confers legal validation to the disputing parties. The legal rules of war were described by the law of nations and occasionally permitted states to commit certain ‘war crimes’ with impunity. For Grotius, this was not a moral sanctioning of such crimes but rather a means to prevent the occurrence of wars, which such endless repudiations risked causing or exacerbating. Grotius’s concern for the effects of war is conspicuous; and recounting his maxim that war should always be a last resort, this article argues that declaration of war has a distinct moral purpose for Grotius. In fact, public declaration of war is, together with constraints on the conduct of war, a ‘principle of moderation’ Grotius insists should be upheld in times of war. Declaration of war gives the parties avenues to seek peace and reconciliation, and, therefore has a humanitarian purpose for Grotius by ultimately seeking to prevent the disparaging effects of war. Even in wars that do not demand a public declaration, such as those regulated by natural law such as punitive wars or defensive wars, Grotius cautions that declarations of war are advisable. The remaining lingering issue is how to engage with unlawful enemy combatants, such as pirates - a distinct problem that the international community still faces with increasing regularity. Grotius was certainly aware of the legal (and moral) consequences of recognising belligerency we cannot possible hope to build moral relations with, and, this article claims, ‘unlawful’ enemies ultimately demarcates the boundary of international society.
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Research Interests: Sociology, Philosophy, Economic Justice, Rationality, Humanity, and 3 moreDignity, Flourishing, and Routledge
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This article argues that one of the main justifications underlying Burke’s plea for a military campaign against revolutionary France was based on humanitarian considerations. With its revolutionary doctrines, France had committed an open... more
This article argues that one of the main justifications underlying Burke’s plea for a military campaign against revolutionary France was based on humanitarian considerations. With its revolutionary doctrines, France had committed an open act of aggression against the European community of states, the containment of which required a right of intervention and the immediate restitution of the ancien regime. The French Republic endangered the lives of its own citizens, those of Europeans in general, and was liable to lead to the collapse of the whole ancient order upon which the European family of states depended. The motivation and evidence for this is to be found in his understanding of the law of nations, developed from customary practices that constituted a society of states or the Commonwealth of Europe as Burke termed it. It is in this respect that Burke departs significantly from better known codifiers of the law of nations such as Grotius, Pufendorf and Vattel. As such, the basis for ‘humanitarian intervention’ in Burke’s writing is predicated upon common and customary law.
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Abstract This paper argues that the moral legitimating reasoning of terra nullius assumed an under-recognised, different guise in the later years of colonial justification in the form of trusteeship. The idea of terra nullius has a... more
Abstract This paper argues that the moral legitimating reasoning of terra nullius assumed an under-recognised, different guise in the later years of colonial justification in the form of trusteeship. The idea of terra nullius has a central place in the political thought of thinkers ...
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In this chapter, I deal with the issue of how Burke and his early modern predecessors discussed the question of ‘international law’ and its enforcement. As is well known, some of the main jurists of the early modern period such as... more
In this chapter, I deal with the issue of how Burke and his early modern predecessors discussed the question of ‘international law’ and its enforcement. As is well known, some of the main jurists of the early modern period such as Vitoria, Gentili and Suárez’ differentiation of the law of nations from the law of nature led to the gradual emergence of the legal principle and moral right of intervention to prevent gross violations of the natural law. Such ideas were refined by Grotius, who largely equated international law with punishment, something Pufendorf and Vattel would later criticise. I argue that it is nevertheless Edmund Burke to whom we must look to bridge the two concerns of international law: authority and enforcement. Burke provided the conceptual scope needed to resolve the issues of enforcement plausibly by prescribing specific common law foundations, binding the legal and the moral in international law and presenting it as domestic law. This way of looking at Burke is under-recognised and provides insight into some of the same concerns that face the international society of states today with regards to the enforcement of international law. In the history of international law, during the long nineteenth century, Burke is somewhat of an early century detour. By emphasising the force of ‘customary international law’ he does not have a strong affinity with nor is he a precursor to the sort of international legal positivism that characterised the later century, where international law was gradually equated with the codification of customary law.
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This article reviews Andrew Fitzmaurice’s recent book Sovereignty, Property and Empire 1500–1800 with a critical examination of the author’s analysis of Hugo Grotius. Unlike other works of intellectual history that focus on the... more
This article reviews Andrew Fitzmaurice’s recent book Sovereignty, Property and Empire 1500–1800 with a critical examination of the author’s analysis of Hugo Grotius. Unlike other works of intellectual history that focus on the relationship between empire and political theory, this book offers a refreshing account of how Western political thought also provided a critique of empire. Using the law of occupation to explain the origin of property and political society, Fitzmaurice demonstrates how ‘occupation’ was used to both justify and criticise extra-European imperial expansion. His analysis of Grotius is centred on ‘occupation’, explaining that even though Grotius’s political thought supports an imperialistic thesis, there is also evidence of anti-imperialist sentiments running through his works. I argue, however, that whilst Fitzmaurice provide a sound and interesting account of the role occupation plays in explaining Grotius’s two different accounts of property in De Indis and De jure belli ac pacis, he disregards the broader philosophical implications this has for Grotius’s theory of property.
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This chapter demonstrates how the knowledge of conceptual challenges that characterised European interactions with the ‘unknown’ became a requisite for the renewal, recasting, and the remake of political theory. The manifestation of... more
This chapter demonstrates how the knowledge of conceptual challenges that characterised European interactions with the ‘unknown’ became a requisite for the renewal, recasting, and the remake of political theory. The manifestation of ‘order’ and the avenues adopted to legitimize this ‘order’, by the European conquers evidences the acute obsession that political theorists like Plato and Hobbes have had in enabling those in power to ‘justify’ their method of accomplishment. There is value that lies in justification, meaning the application of which in the realms of property rights and political authority has the potential of shaping international contemporary world order. Recognizing this value, history has long been a testament to attempts made at constructing a series of ‘justifications’ that ensure the sustained survival of the newly-created world order. This chapter covers aspects of this history, from the end of the Christian Crusades in 1492, to the evolution of Grotian and Lockean theories of natural law in the 17th century. As such, this chapter maps the dialogue regarding possibilities and limitations of natural law in formulating arguments for interventionism and a shift from the Christian world order. This is done through three important vectors of ‘infidel rights,’ the ‘right to missionary wars’ and the ‘right to colonize,’ to explain how ex-post-facto rationalizations have attempted to make sense of human imagination and the moral paradigms under which this imagination functioned. This exploration primarily has two motivations: the first is to grapple with the political, social, and legal underpinnings of these conceptual challenges, and secondly highlight the ‘fluidity’ of these imaginations due to the continuing reaffirmation of our moral compass as outlined in the Sépulvidan-Las Casas discourse. Furthermore, the semantical connotation attached to the term “by what right” is emblematic of the power of our imagination and the incessant drive to expand and constrain it. Keeping this crucial caveat in mind, the chapter conclusively ties the notion of imagination back to the ideological crux of its core argument: why a drive for the investigation of ‘Europeanisation’ is quintessential for the ideological flourishment of international political theory as a critical mode on inquiry.
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Pufendorf is often purported as an early modern exemplar of legal positivism; perhaps unsurprising as his jurisprudence had some of the hallmarks of at least classical legal positivism: Law was conceptualised as command, it had to have an... more
Pufendorf is often purported as an early modern exemplar of legal positivism; perhaps unsurprising as his jurisprudence had some of the hallmarks of at least classical legal positivism: Law was conceptualised as command, it had to have an author, that is, the ‘binding of a superior’ to qualify as law and be enforceable. Pufendorf's repudiation of a distinct law of nations appears to be an important event in the development of international law that, on the one hand, opened up the international domain to legal positivism (as implied by its "redundancy"), yet, on the other, also elevated its status. But we are left to ponder what type of international order Pufendorf had in mind, and why he is still considered part of the history of international law. To understand his legacy, this chapter asks what Pufendorf hoped to accomplish through international law, and whether it aligns with our own aspirations? It claims that what is often overlooked in discussions of international legal thought is that Pufendorf offered a moral justification for certain state behaviours, without expecting those states to adhere to it. His concept of ‘international natural law’ was not intended to refute the complexity of issues between nations that cannot be resolved using conventional methods of enforcement, but rather to recognise it. Pufendorf thus shows us why a presumption of a moral impetuous has to lie at the bottom of international relations, but also emphasises the drawbacks of moral arguments that are not backed up by legality. His moral guidance concerning international law has been a source of discussion in times of crises, such as in the aftermath of both World Wars and continues to be revisited by legal scholars and historians of thought. Thus, this chapter also focuses on how Pufendorf's teachings shaped these discussions. Perhaps Pufendorf’s most enduring legacy for international law is setting up a dialectic convergence of naturalism and positivism that ultimately takes us to better questions about the limits of international justice.
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This is a landmark volume in the history of international thought. It collects together nine chapters by a multidisciplinary team of historians, International Relations theorists and philosophers to consider the debt that modern... more
This is a landmark volume in the history of international thought. It collects together nine chapters by a multidisciplinary team of historians, International Relations theorists and philosophers to consider the debt that modern international society owes to the European Middle Ages and the neglected intellectual resources medieval thinking might offer the present.
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This paper argues that the moral legitimating reasoning of terra nullius assumed an under-recognised, different guise in the later years of colonial justification in the form of trusteeship. The idea of terra nullius has a central place... more
This paper argues that the moral legitimating reasoning of terra nullius assumed an under-recognised, different guise in the later years of colonial justification in the form of trusteeship. The idea of terra nullius has a central place in the political thought of thinkers such as Grotius and Locke. Although terra nullius, consolidated in European colonial thought in the early modern period, differed conceptually from the doctrine of trusteeship as the colonial legitimation for Africa, both instituted a moral justification for the appropriation of native land, and of empire itself. The contention is that the trajectory from the one doctrine to the other was aligned with the change in the underlying moral framework of the rights and duties of Europeans and non-Europeans. In the early days of colonisation, there was a certain permissiveness on the part of the colonisers to appropriate the land of American Indians. By the late nineteenth century this seemed to change into a moral requirement for civilising the native Africans. Edmund Burke's conceptualisation of trusteeship illustrates the way in which traditionally conceived natural rights were transformed into fundamental social rights, and central to this idea was the expansion of European 'civilised' moral communities on which rights now depended.
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In this chapter, I deal with the issue of how Burke and his early modern predecessors discussed the question of ‘international law’ and its enforcement. As is well known, some of the main jurists of the early modern period such as... more
In this chapter, I deal with the issue of how Burke and his early modern predecessors discussed the question of ‘international law’ and its enforcement. As is well known, some of the main jurists of the early modern period such as Vitoria, Gentili and Suárez’ differentiation of the law of nations from the law of nature led to the gradual emergence of the legal principle and moral right of intervention to prevent gross violations of the natural law. Such ideas were refined by Grotius, who largely equated international law with punishment, something Pufendorf and Vattel would later criticise. I argue that it is nevertheless Edmund Burke to whom we must look to bridge the two concerns of international law: authority and enforcement. Burke provided the conceptual scope needed to resolve the issues of enforcement plausibly by prescribing specific common law foundations, binding the legal and the moral in international law and presenting it as domestic law. This way of looking at Burke is under-recognised and provides insight into some of the same concerns that face the international society of states today with regards to the enforcement of international law. In the history of international law, during the long nineteenth century, Burke is somewhat of an early century detour. By emphasising the force of ‘customary international law’ he does not have a strong affinity with nor is he a precursor to the sort of international legal positivism that characterised the later century, where international law was gradually equated with the codification of customary law.
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This article reviews Andrew Fitzmaurice’s recent book Sovereignty, Property and Empire 1500–1800 with a critical examination of the author’s analysis of Hugo Grotius. Unlike other works of intellectual history that focus on the... more
This article reviews Andrew Fitzmaurice’s recent book Sovereignty, Property and Empire 1500–1800 with a critical examination of the author’s analysis of Hugo Grotius. Unlike other works of intellectual history that focus on the relationship between empire and political theory, this book offers a refreshing account of how Western political thought also provided a critique of empire. Using the law of occupation to explain the origin of property and political society, Fitzmaurice demonstrates how ‘occupation’ was used to both justify and criticise extra-European imperial expansion. His analysis of Grotius is centred on ‘occupation’, explaining that even though Grotius’s political thought supports an imperialistic thesis, there is also evidence of anti-imperialist sentiments running through his works. I argue, however, that whilst Fitzmaurice provide a sound and interesting account of the role occupation plays in explaining Grotius’s two different accounts of property in De Indis and De...
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This article argues that one of the main justifications underlying Burke’s plea for a military campaign against revolutionary France was based on humanitarian considerations. With its revolutionary doctrines, France had committed an open... more
This article argues that one of the main justifications underlying Burke’s plea for a military campaign against revolutionary France was based on humanitarian considerations. With its revolutionary doctrines, France had committed an open act of aggression against the European community of states, the containment of which required a right of intervention and the immediate restitution of the ancien regime. The French Republic endangered the lives of its own citizens, those of Europeans in general, and was liable to lead to the collapse of the whole ancient order upon which the European family of states depended. The motivation and evidence for this is to be found in his understanding of the law of nations, developed from customary practices that constituted a society of states or the Commonwealth of Europe as Burke termed it. It is in this respect that Burke departs significantly from better known codifiers of the law of nations such as Grotius, Pufendorf and Vattel. As such, the basis for ‘humanitarian intervention’ in Burke’s writing is predicated upon common and customary law.
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The 24th of February 2022, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine exposed the vulnerability of the civilised world order. As armoured tanks rolled across the Ukrainian border, it soon became apparent that Vladimir Putin was as impervious to moral... more
The 24th of February 2022, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine exposed the vulnerability of the civilised world order. As armoured tanks rolled across the Ukrainian border, it soon became apparent that Vladimir Putin was as impervious to moral suasion from Western leaders, as he was to the threat of legal sanctions. So far, the economic stranglehold Putin’s Russia has been placed under has done little by way of exhortation. By all accounts, Putin seems to have embraced his newfound role as international pariah or, to use another term, hostis humani generis – enemy of humankind. If the liberal world order wasn’t already on life-support, as one commentator noticed, surely now, as the war rages on with no immediate solution in sight, offer of peace, or response by way of military humanitarian intervention, it is time to turn off the switch? Whether the liberal world order can or should be resuscitated is likely to be a topic for academic discussion going forward. Part of the answer to this question also hinges on who is willing to bear moral witness. This act of witness bearing demands the moral duty to testify to collective violence and to give voice to the victims of such violence. It has, however, also become a central trope for the Western moral international culture in the allocation
and pronouncement of grief and moral outrage.
and pronouncement of grief and moral outrage.
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Abstract The basic motivation for trusteeship is the expropriation of land from indigenous inhabitants, for the exploitation of its resources. Yet, the moral, political and epistemic authority of trusteeship is based on the promise of... more
Abstract The basic motivation for trusteeship is the expropriation of land from indigenous inhabitants, for the exploitation of its resources. Yet, the moral, political and epistemic authority of trusteeship is based on the promise of self-determination for such inhabitants. The South African colonial experience is very much part of this narrative and trusteeship's chief legitimating pretention, of the higher level of rational and technological development reached by the white man, was embraced and consolidated both by liberals and nationalists. Though initially deriving from foundations of covering law universalism, we argue that trusteeship evolved conceptually in colonial South Africa from explicitly moral, integrationist Cape Liberal ideal into a pragmatic, positivistic foundation for apartheid, expressed in progressive, pluralist, humanitarian terms of ‘cultural adaptation’ and ‘adapted education’. Our study shows up and explains a seemingly anomalous contradiction that transpired in South Africa during events leading up to apartheid, involving the logically illicit miscegenation of cultural relativist pluralism and covering law universalism that begat trusteeship's disgrace: the Bantustan. Our exploration of this historic incorporation of difference uncovers systematic forces of power and ideology that continue to haunt democratic independence after apartheid.
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Research Interests: Philosophy and Routledge
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This article investigates the formal purpose of declaring wars for Hugo Grotius. Grotius was adamant that states always use justification in a duplicitous way to conceal their real motivation to go to war. As such, the purpose of... more
This article investigates the formal purpose of declaring wars for Hugo Grotius. Grotius was adamant that states always use justification in a duplicitous way to conceal their real motivation to go to war. As such, the purpose of declaration is not to assert the just cause of war. Rather, what any public declaration does, is provide recognition that confers legal validation to the disputing parties. The legal rules of war were described by the law of nations and occasionally permitted states to commit certain ‘war crimes’ with impunity. For Grotius, this was not a moral sanctioning of such crimes but rather a means to prevent the occurrence of wars, which such endless repudiations risked causing or exacerbating. Grotius’s concern for the effects of war is conspicuous; and recounting his maxim that war should always be a last resort, this article argues that declaration of war has a distinct moral purpose for Grotius. In fact, public declaration of war is, together with constraints o...
This chapter examines Hugo Grotius' key political ideas. Grotius, one of the most prolific and erudite writers of the seventeenth century, sought to formulate a set of universal rights and duties that would secure peace by... more
This chapter examines Hugo Grotius' key political ideas. Grotius, one of the most prolific and erudite writers of the seventeenth century, sought to formulate a set of universal rights and duties that would secure peace by constraining states in their internal and external relations. Drawing on a wide range of philosophical and literary sources, including Roman law, ancient classics, theology, and poetry, Grotius rehabilitated the natural law in an attempt to achieve harmony in an increasingly splintered political environment. After providing a short biography of Grotius, the chapter analyses his views on natural law, natural rights, property rights, sociability, self-preservation, and social contracts. It also discusses…
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The emergence of International Relations as a discipline initially tried, as politics had done, to define itself in terms of classic canonical texts; but with the abject failure of liberal internationalism, and the associated discrediting... more
The emergence of International Relations as a discipline initially tried, as politics had done, to define itself in terms of classic canonical texts; but with the abject failure of liberal internationalism, and the associated discrediting of the Carnegie project of educating the ruling classes by making available the classic texts in international law and the law of nations, the nascent discipline rejected its classic heritage and embarked upon an interminable search for a new identity. The person who most lamented this departure was Martin Wight, the doyen of the English School, and the inspiration for much of the revived attempts to retrieve the classic heritage and add intellectual weight and gravitas to the discipline. To some extent Wight was methodologically naive in suggesting that, in contrast with political theory, international theory could defer only to minor characters and, in the texts of major figures, only to scattered subsidiary asides. He confused the contemporary conferral of classical status by political theorists upon texts which purportedly addressed their problems, with the historical and intrinsic quality and integrity of texts that had now fallen into neglect for want of an audience.
In this chapter, I deal with the issue of how Burke and his early modern predecessors discussed the question of ‘international law’ and its enforcement. As is well known, some of the main jurists of the early modern period such as... more
In this chapter, I deal with the issue of how Burke and his early modern predecessors discussed the question of ‘international law’ and its enforcement. As is well known, some of the main jurists of the early modern period such as Vitoria, Gentili and Suárez’ differentiation of the law of nations from the law of nature led to the gradual emergence of the legal principle and moral right of intervention to prevent gross violations of the natural law. Such ideas were refined by Grotius, who largely equated international law with punishment, something Pufendorf and Vattel would later criticise. I argue that it is nevertheless Edmund Burke to whom we must look to bridge the two concerns of international law: authority and enforcement. Burke provided the conceptual scope needed to resolve the issues of enforcement plausibly by prescribing specific common law foundations, binding the legal and the moral in international law and presenting it as domestic law. This way of looking at Burke is under-recognised and provides insight into some of the same concerns that face the international society of states today with regards to the enforcement of international law. In the history of international law, during the long nineteenth century, Burke is somewhat of an early century detour. By emphasising the force of ‘customary international law’ he does not have a strong affinity with nor is he a precursor to the sort of international legal positivism that characterised the later century, where international law was gradually equated with the codification of customary law.