1 Recent research in the history of international law Frederik Dhondt * Legal history, to the image of this journal’s dominating figures E. Meijers and R. Feenstra, has in the first place been the history of private law. Centuries of mainly European academic study of private law have been the backdrop for public law reasoning and the ‘modus operandi’ of public officials 1 . This is in par with many of the great treatises on natural law 2 . The study of public international law and its antecedents originally stemmed from that of the Roman and scholastic tradition 3 , but has significantly expanded in scope over the last decades 4 . Mapping recent research had thus become a hazardous exercise in more than one respect. Any classification is deemed subjective and incomplete beforehand. The enormous expansion of historical scientific work having international law as its object, as well as authors’ personal theoretical and methodological postulates create a hybrid and diverse mass of scholarship 5 . The latter determinant is even more abundant in a field as the history of international law, where “there cannot be said to be any such thing as a history of international law as a single and unitary thing 6 ”, since “conceptions of what international law is, have changed so much over time 7 ”. Alternative and coinciding views are as valid as the one demonstrated in the ensuing pages and can contribute to the debate on the nature of the object and method of international legal research 8 . The present classification opts for a two-fold structure, focusing attention on the recent ambitious syntheses and collective works (I). On the other side, if focuses on monographs representing a specific (disciplinary) orientation (II). Although the study of published treaties and big treatises still offers many possibilities, legal historians show an increased interest in diplomatic documents and advisory practice. Scholarship by historians sheds new light on legal materials. Finally, legal and historical research alike entered in fruitful interaction with narratives in the social sciences such as gender or globalisation. I. Works with a broader view A. Big-book syntheses Three general works currently stand out as readily-available handbooks, all three emphasising the need to see international law as a dialogue between different intellectual traditions and movements: the second * Lecturer, Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) and Postdoctoral Research Fellow of the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO), Legal History Institute, Ghent University. The present article was written during a stay as a Visiting Fellow at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Department of International History (Geneva). My express thanks go to Ms Olivia Ten Horn and drs. Matthias Van der Haeghen (FWO/UGent) for their help with the linguistic aspects of this contribution. 1 F. Wieacker, A history of private law in Europe with particular reference to Germany , transl. T. Weir, Oxford 1995; R.C. Van Caenegem, Judges, legislators and professors : chapters in European legal history, [Goodhart lectures], Cambridge 1987; M. Loughlin, Foundations of public law, New York 2010. 2 E.g. C. Wolff, Ius gentium methodo scientifica pertractatum, transl. Francis J. Hemelt, [Classics of International Law, 13], Oxford/London 1934 [1764]. 3 P. Haggenmacher, Grotius et la doctrine de la guerre juste, [Graduate Institute eHeritage, 1], Genève 2014 [1983]. L. Winkel, The Peace Treaties of Westphalia as an instance of the reception of Roman law, in: Peace Treaties and International Law in European History, ed. R. Lesaffer, Cambridge/New York 2004, p. 222-240; D. Bauer, The importance of medieval canon law and the scholastic tradition for the emergence of the early modern international legal order, in: Peace Treaties and International Law in European History, ed. R. Lesaffer, Cambridge/New York 2004, p. 198-221. 4 R. Lesaffer, The Grotian Tradition Revisited: Change and Continuity in the History of International Law, British Yearbook of International Law, 73 (2002), p. 103-139. 5 F. Dhondt, Looking Beyond the Tip of the Iceberg: Diplomatic Praxis and Legal Culture in the History of Public International Law, Rechtskultur - Zeitschrift für Europäische Rechtsgeschichte/European Journal of Legal History/Journal européen d'histoire du droit - Methode der Rechtsgeschichte und ihrer Nachbarwissenschaften beim Umgang mit rechtshistorischen Quellen, 2 (2013), p. 31-42. 6 S.C. Neff, Justice Among Nations. A History of International Law, Cambridge (Mass) 2014, p. 481. 7 Ibid. 8 The present contribution only concerns recent scholarship. For a general bibliographical introduction, see S.C. Neff, Justice Among Nations. A History of International Law (supra, n. 6), p. 561-602.