Periodization and international law

This contribution makes the case for analytical periodizations of the history of international law which treat separately the origins and development of international norms, the recognition of such norms by subjects of international law as constituting a system of international law, and the emergence of ideas or concepts of the law of nations as developed by publicists. Periodization, explicit or latent, is explored through the writings of individual jurists from Robert Ward down to E. T. Usenko and Olga Butkevych. The author suggests we may have no history of international law in written form at all, merely impressionistic discourses based on general histories of diplomacy, international relations, or human society. The fledgling discipline of international legal history is afflicted by the absence of temporal indicators that reflect the causal components of the origins and development of the law of nations.