Emeritus Professor and ECI director Martti Koskenniemi's most recent book 'To the Uttermost Parts of the Earth - Legal Imagination and International Power 1300–1870' has been published by Cambridge University Press in August 2021.
Book description
To the Uttermost Parts of the Earth shows the vital role played by legal imagination in the formation of the international order during 1300–1870. It discusses how European statehood arose during early modernity as a locally specific combination of ideas about sovereign power and property rights, and how those ideas expanded to structure the formation of European empires and consolidate modern international relations. By connecting the development of legal thinking with the history of political thought and by showing the gradual rise of economic analysis into predominance, the author argues that legal ideas from different European legal systems - Spanish, French, English and German - have played a prominent role in the history of global power. This history has emerged in imaginative ways to combine public and private power, sovereignty and property. The book will appeal to readers crossing conventional limits between international law, international relations, history of political thought, jurisprudence and legal history.
The e-book is now available for purchase on the CUP website, with the hardcover and paperpack to follow in November 2021.
Martti Koskenniemi is Emeritus Professor of International Law at the University of Helsinki and Director of the Erik Castrén Institute of International Law and Human Rights. He was a member of the Finnish diplomatic service in 1978-1994 and of the International Law Commission (UN) in 2002-2006. He has been a Visiting Global Professor of Law at New York University since 1997 and has held other visiting professorships at many leading universities. He is also member of the Institut de droit international. His main publications include 'From Apology to Utopia; The Structure of International Legal Argument (1989/2005)', 'The Gentle Civilizer of Nations: The Rise and Fall of International Law 1870-1960 (2001)' and 'The Politics of International Law (2011)'. For a complete list of publications see his profile on the University of Helsinki research portal.