Rights and Civilizations, translated from the Italian original, traces a history of international law to illustrate the origins of the Western colonial project and its attempts to civilize the non-European world. The book, ranging from the sixteenth century to the twenty-first, explains how the West sought to justify its own colonial conquests through an ideology that revolved around the idea of its own assumed superiority, variously attributed to Christian peoples (in the early modern age), Western 'civil' peoples (in the nineteenth century), and 'developed' peoples (at the beginning of the twentieth century), and now to democratic Western peoples. In outlining this history and discourse, the book shows that, while the Western conception may style itself as universal, it is in fact relative. This comes out by bringing the Western civilization into comparison with others, mainly the Islamic one, suggesting the need for an 'intercivilizational' approach to international law.
This book explains the Western colonial project and the West's attempt to legitimize it through its international law, refusing the presumed universalism of the Western concept of human rights compared with the Arab declarations on rights. The book is addressed to readers interested in legal history and political thought.
Recenzijas
'This book certainly is a necessary addition to any collection devoted to international law.' S. R. Silverburg, Choice 'Gustavo Gozzi has an ambitious and impressively far-reaching approach here [ in this] study presented on the history and philosophy of international law [ T]he focus is on an investigation into the history of ideas, which is carried out by a critical interpretation of current problems in international relations ... This creates a fruitful tension.' Peter Schröder, Neue Politische Literatur 'The book's biggest strength is its completeness - it is indeed difficult to find another one that covers as many thinkers and topics of the history of international law. For that alone it deserves to be read.' Ralph Janik, Austrian Review of International and European Law
Papildus informācija
Illustrates the origin and ways of Western hegemony over other civilizations across the world.
Preface to this English translation; Introduction; Acknowledgements; A
note on the contents; Part I. Ius Gentium and the Origins of International
Law:
1. The rights of peoples and ius gentium: The origins of the modern age;
2. Hugo Grotius and the law of peoples;
3. Samuel Pufendorf and Emer de
Vattel: Kant's 'miserable comforters';
4. The rights of man and cosmopolitan
law: Kantian roots in the current debate on rights; Part II. International
Law and Western Civilization:
5. International law and Western civilization;
6. International law, peace, and justice: Hans Kelsen's normativism;
7.
Realist perspectives: historiography, international law, international
relations;
8. Order and anarchy: the Grotian tradition; Part III.
International Law, Islam, and the Third World:
9. The law of peoples and
international law;
10. Islam and rights: Islamic and Arab charters of the
rights of man;
11. The Third World and international law; Part IV. Conditions
for Peace:
12. The foundation of human rights: an intercultural perspective;
13. Parallel worlds: international governance and the (utopian?) principles
of international law; Glossary of Arab terms; Index.
Gustavo Gozzi is full professor of the History of Political Doctrines and the History of International Law. He is currently Alma Mater Professor in Multiculturalism and Cultural Relativism at the University of Bologna. He is a member of the Advisory Board of the King Abdulaziz Chair for Islamic Studies at the University of Bologna. He has conducted research at the Max Planck Institut für europäische Rechtsgeschichte in Frankfurt am Main and has been visiting professor in Tunis, Istanbul, Tarragona, and Corinth. He is director of the series Democracies, Rights, Constitutions, and has founded a master's programme in International Cooperation on Human Rights and Intercultural Heritage.
