Justice among Nations. A History of International Law - Stephen C. Neff

Doing Justice to Others 37

ing provision for extradition of wanted criminals (along with a promise that

extradited persons would be accorded humane treatment). Egypt agreed to

drop its claims to the state of Amurru (in the northwest of present- day

Syria), in exchange for being given trading rights in the area. Th e peace also

proved a durable one, bringing warfare between the two powers to a perma-

nent end.

In the manner in which dealings with outsiders were managed, the three

principal regions of Eurasia— India, China, and the Mediterranean world—

off er highly instructive contrasts that would be decisive for the shape that

international law would take throughout its history. Two of the three areas,

India and the West, gave birth to universal religious-cum- philosophical

systems, with grand visions of equality of all peoples. Th e third one, impe-

rial China, took a sharply diff erent path, toward an explicitly sinocentric

outlook that relegated those who were culturally alien to the margins of

their moral world. But India and the West, too, even if they both sired uni-

versal religions, went on to take very diff erent roads from one another.

India and Buddhism
Th e oldest of the world’s universal faiths is Buddhism, which was fi rst pro-
claimed and promoted by Prince Gautama, from the ruling family of a
small state on the border of present- day Nepal and India, in approximately
the fi ft h century bc. In its earliest centuries, it was more of a philosophy
than a religion— and perhaps better yet regarded as a practical program for
personal salvation. Its most prominent institution was the sangha, or mo-
nastic system, which is said (probably correctly) to be the oldest human in-
stitution in continuous existence. Among the more noteworthy teachings
of Buddhism were nonviolence and nonaggression, even to the point of
eschewing animal sacrifi ce, which was so common a feature of religions
generally.
To some extent, Buddhism succeeded in appealing to sovereigns, at least
for a time. It was endorsed in the third century bc in India by Ashoka, a
ruler of the Maurya dynasty, the fi rst of the major imperial dynasties in the
Indian subcontinent. Th e histories relate that, upon adopting the faith, Ashoka
abjured further conquests. Later, Buddhism was adopted as the national faith of
the empire of the Kushans, which was based not exclusively in India itself, but