Humanität als Vehikel

The study reassesses the history of the laws of war. It departs from the well-trodden paths of linear-progressive narratives of progress and reconstructs the codification through an interdisciplinary approach that combines legal doctrine with archive-based elements of the history of ideas. In this way, the study identifies security policy reactions to systemic shifts in European international law as the starting point of the codification project. Raphael Schäfer is a senior research fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law and managing editor of the Journal of the History of International Law. He is a general international lawyer with a special interest in the foundations of international law.