Context in the History of International Law

This article examines recent, and contrasting, methodological developments in the history of international law. These include the recent defense of anachronism by leading historians of international law, on the one hand, as well as a growing number of studies that focus upon the practice of international law, on the other. The article contends that contextual history need not cut the past off from the present, as some critics have maintained. At the same time, it calls for a richer understanding of context that explores the connections between so-called ‘theory’ and practice.