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International law for survival: teaching international law in the late Ottoman Empire (1859–1922)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 November 2014

Mustafa Serdar Palabıyık
Mustafa Serdar Palabıyık*
Affiliation:
Department of International Relations, TOBB Economics and Technology University, Ankara
*
[email protected]
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Abstract

This article analyses the teaching of international law in the late Ottoman Empire. It argues that the Ottomans were interested in teaching European international law to equip Ottoman bureaucrats with the skills necessary for evaluating and regulating the complex interrelation between the Ottoman Empire and the European states, to defend the vital interests of the Empire against European legal penetration via extraterritoriality, and to understand the legal basis of the European system of which the Empire had officially been accepted as a part by the European Great Powers since the conclusion of the Treaty of Paris in 1856. The article focuses on the courses, scholars and textbooks in the field of international law in the Ottoman Empire during three periods. The preliminary period (1859–76), witnessed the emergence of the first courses, scholars and literature on international law; in the Hamidian period (1876–1908) these courses were stabilized and systematized in line with higher education reforms in the Ottoman Empire; and finally, in the post-Hamidian period, the opening of new schools of law in the countryside and the reformation of existing schools allowed the teaching and literature of international law to flourish.

Keywords

International lawOttoman EmpireHigher education in the Ottoman EmpireSchool of Civil Service (Mekteb-i Mülkiye)School of Law (Mekteb-i Hukuk)
Type
Articles
Information
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 78 , Issue 2 , June 2015 , pp. 271 - 292
Copyright
Copyright © SOAS, University of London 2014 

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