Overcoming Eurocentrism? Global History and the Oxford Handbook of the History of International Law

International audienceLast Spring, the Rechtskulturen programme, an initiative of the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin at the Transregionale Studien Forum, invited me to participate in a symposium on the Oxford Handbook of the History of International Law2 - a robust book of 1250 pages. I was asked to `critically assess' the Handbook's `global history' approach, that is, to assess whether it was a successful step in `overcoming Eurocentrism' in the history of international law. The symposium turned out to be a wonderful event, a gathering of historians, anthropologists, political scientists, and lawyers, where I became very conscious of my own professional language but where I also experienced a willingness to transcend disciplinary boundaries and biases. The following remarks should be interpreted as a continuation of that discussion