Ebook: The Legacy of Punishment in International Law

The Legacy of Punishment in International Law illustrates how seventeenth and eighteenth century rationales for the use of force in support of piracy and colonialism have been transformed into progressive features of contemporary International Law.  The classic practice of international punishment was a part of the jus ad bellum, and was the fig leaf for intra-European violence, and for the European conquest of the Americas.  It has been transformed, however, into the basis for the assertion of a set of unconditionally, universally binding rules of international law, and for universal jurisdiction over perpetrators of crimes against humanity and war crimes..