Conclusion

I

t would be pleasing to report, by way of rapid summation, that the his-

tory of international law has been a steady forward march, a progressive

colonization of hitherto barbaric and anarchic lands by valiant pilgrims of

the Rule of Law, shining ever brighter light into the hitherto dark corners of

international practices. Sadly, that is a diffi cult case to make. It may even be

wondered whether, in fundamental conceptual terms, there has been any

advance at all since the most ancient days of which we have rec ords. It was

observed that so- called international law in those earliest times consisted of

nothing more than an aggregation of practices devised by states to bring a

modest degree of predictability to an essentially anarchic world. Some will

harbor uneasy suspicions that international law in the early twenty- fi rst

century could be described, all too accurately, in just those terms.

Quantitative advances can certainly be conceded. States interact with one

another far more frequently in modern times than they did many centuries

ago. Th e expansion of the UN Treaty Series (over twenty- fi ve hundred vol-

umes and counting) marches inexorably onward. In some respects, interna-

tional law may be seen as one of humanity’s greatest monuments to the su-

periority of practice to theory. Laws are made, even in very large volume,

and (oft en) obeyed. But there remains a surprising degree of mystery and

disagreement as to the nature of the pro cess involved— including its pur-

pose, if any.

If there is any lesson to be drawn from our juridical voyage, it is that there

cannot be said to be any such thing as a history of international law as a

single unitary thing. Th e reason is that conceptions of what international

law is have changed so much over time. To some, international law is a