International law is still a very rudimentary system, with vast
barren stretches between small cultivated areas.
—Wolfgang Friedmann In 1933, the En glish author and public intellectual H. G. Wells penned a
futurological novel— actually more of a po liti cal tract— entitled Th e Shape of
Th ings to Come. It provided a vision of what the international scene would be
like in the late twentieth and early twenty- fi rst centuries. Th e world was envis-
aged to be united into what was called, somewhat blandly, the Modern State,
inaugurated in 1965 at a conference in Basra, Iraq. Th e impetus for the found-
ing was a cataclysmic war that was predicted to begin in Eu rope in 1940 and
to be sparked by a confl ict between Poland and Germany. Th e destruction
wrought by that struggle would be the inducement for global unifi cation.
It did not work out quite like that. Th e cataclysm was impressively fore-
seen, even to the precipitating clash and a near- perfect guess as to the year.
But there was little evidence of the world state. Th rough all the vicissitudes
of the twentieth century, the principle of the sovereign equality of states
stubbornly survived. World wars, nuclear weapons, and genocide were un-
able to dislodge it. Sharp- quilled lawyers brought their own specialized
doctrinal weapons to bear on it. But it survived, and even fl ourished. Th e
League of Nations and the later United Nations (UN), far from attacking
state sovereignty, accorded it the highest degree of respect.
In short, the period from about 1910 to the present was a time of much
continuity with the past in the realm of international law. Intellectually, the
century was less heroic than its pre de ces sor. Th ere was less in the way of
blazing new trails— though much in the way of building on existing ideas.
In terms of action on the ground, however, the picture was radically diff er-
ent. Th e century would witness a bewildering host of initiatives in all areas
of the subject. One of the most visible signs of this vibrancy was the estab-
lishment, at last, of a standing World Court, to adjudicate claims between
states in much the manner of ordinary courts hearing disputes between
private parties. Aft er the Second World War, there was even the specter of
international criminal tribunals, for the prosecution and punishment of
persons whose misdeeds threatened the world at large rather than just their
local neighborhoods.