History of International Law

Editor's Note:  This post was first published by the author in French in the Galerie des internationalistes francophones (Gallery of French-Speaking Internationalists) on the website of the French Society for International Law (SFDI).  We are particularly grateful that Professor Latty's translated version will reach the EJIL:Talk! readership around the world. At the start of 2019 and the year long campaign designed around International Women's Day on 8 March 2019, it may be particularly apt for the readers of EJIL: Talk! to consider Christine de Pizan (around 1365 - around 1430), a medieval woman of letters, as one of the founders of international law - even if somewhat surprising for several reasons.  One is the anachronism attached to this qualification, the invention of the word “international” attributed to Bentham in 1780 being much later than Pizan’s passage on earth. At that time, only a few States, in the contemporary sense of the term, had taken shape, while the idea of a legal system organizing their relations was still in limbo. Moreover, Pizan is…