Due diligence has increasingly attracted the attention of scholars but it remains an elusive concept. This chapter explains why a study on the dogmatic foundations of due diligence obligations is timely. Thechapter argues that studies addressing the theory of public international law obligations are still scarce. Yet, they are crucial for properly understanding the externalities of obligations and their functioning on the international legal order. Starting with this premise, the chapter asserts that a theoretical study on due diligence obligations serves two main purposes. First, it allows to better clarify the nature, the content and the scope of operation of these obligations, which are traditionally considered difficult to pin down in the abstract. Second, the chapter advances the hypothesis, to be tested in the course of the book, that a dogmatic reconstruction of due diligence obligations also serves normative purposes. The introduction then sets the methodology and scope of the book and explains why the study of due diligence obligations will be limited to obligations of states and will not cover due diligence obligations of international organisations and non-state actors.

This chapter draws on archival sources from across Europe and the United States to uncover the motives behind early International Relations (IR) institutions and to contextualise their intellectual output from 1919 until the end of the 1920s. It begins in Aberystwyth and covers the famous IR chairs at the London School of Economics and Oxford as well as Chatham House, the most important British non-university institution in the field. The second section looks at university departments in continental Europe that played important roles during the inter-war period but have since been largely forgotten, including those in Berlin, Hamburg, Paris, Vienna, and Geneva. American universities, the next section shows, adopted IR from a somewhat remote perspective, given the temporary American withdrawal from the international stage. Yet the subject soon flourished on university campuses such as Georgetown, Chicago, Princeton, and Yale as well as among the political and financial establishment in Washington and New York. Finally, the last section presents a few examples of the global spread of IR while acknowledging that the discipline remained heavily Eurocentric throughout the inter-war period.

This chapter examines the intellectual and institutional challenges that the architects of International Relations (IR) faced during the 1930s. It first shows how the Nazi government nationalised research centres and forced scholars into exile, essentially eliminating the independent study of IR in German-speaking Europe. The second section reviews how Hitler’s rise to power was perceived by the IR community and how scholars struggled to make sense of his foreign policy agenda. The third section inspects ‘peaceful change’ as a political idea. The fourth section explores its application as a policy instrument, notably Arnold Toynbee’s quasi-diplomatic ventures to Germany. The final section traces the gradual demise of IR scholarship, from financial and political difficulties in the mid-1930s to the complete suspension of activities within the first year of the Second World War.

A presentation of the concluding remarks and main submissions on the issues discussed in Chapters 1 to 6 of the book.

This chapter introduces the jus ad bellum: the rules of law determining when states may resort to war or, more broadly, the use of armed force. These rules must be distinguished from the jus in bello: these are the rules of law that apply in armed conflict (known as international humanitarian law). In order to put the current jus ad bellum rules into perspective, the chapter begins by introducing the concept of collective security and demonstrating how this was applied during the League of Nations era. The following sections set out the relevant rules of the UN Charter on the prevention and regulation of recourse to the use of force, with a particular focus on the prohibition on the threat or use of force. The chapter also discusses the collective use of force, meaning the use of force authorized by the Security Council, and the unilateral use of force in self-defense. Finally, the chapter examines whether new exceptions to the prohibition of the use of force are emerging -- in particular, humanitarian intervention and the responsibility to protect.

This chapter draws lessons from the historical account offered in Part I of Before the West for contemporary debates in International Relations, especially those having to do with the crisis of the modern international order. It argues that broadening our temporal and geographical horizon helps us think about how ‘world orders’ come about and how they are replaced. IR has focused too much on the decline of ‘great powers’ and, until recently, barely thought about the decline of ‘world orders’. The story of Eastern world orders show us that orders often decline not because of what great powers do but because of larger, more structural crises. Furthermore, we should pay more attention to the health of the social fabric that holds our order together: 'the East' did not decline materially until much later but lost its social cohesion. This chapter shows that the 'decline of the East' has been misconstrued as being material. The chapter also offers a defense of using macro-historical narratives in service of IR theory and some guidance for how to approach such comparisons (e.g. in thinking about the transhistoricity of fundamental concepts).

This chapter focuses on the rules set out in the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (VCLT). The chapter begins with the concept of a treaty, before discussing treatymaking, with a particular focus on the conclusion of treaties, their entry into force, and reservations to treaties. The chapter then delves into how treaties operate -- namely, their scope of application and their interpretation. Finally, this chapter looks at the invalidity, suspension, and termination of treaties.

International criminal law is the branch of public international law under which individuals may be held criminally responsible for the offenses of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression. International criminal law seeks to prevent impunity by holding accountable those individuals who are responsible for serious violations of international criminal law. This chapter begins with the history of international criminal law, starting with the aftermath of the First and Second World Wars, and ending with the creation of a spate of international criminal courts and tribunals in recent decades. The chapter then covers substantive aspects of international criminal law, namely the crime of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression. Finally, the chapter covers key procedural aspects of international criminal law, including the jurisdiction of international courts and tribunals, the admissibility of cases, modes of liability, and immunities. The International Criminal Court (ICC) will form a focal point in this chapter.