The vocabulary of progress in interwar international law: An intellectual portrait of stelios seferiades

European Journal of International Law

Volumn 16, Issue 5, 2005, Pages 823-856

  Skouteris, Thomas ^a  

^a LEIDEN UNIVERSITY   (Netherlands)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 31444447064     PISSN: 09385428     EISSN: 14643596     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/ejil/chi157     Document Type: Article

References (200)

1. The work of Seferiades as a whole has received very little attention to date, with the exception of a post-humous collection of essays in his honour, containing only a brief introduction to his life and work. See S. Kalogeropoulos et al., Mélanges Séfériadès (1961) (2 Volumes, with essays in Greek, English and French) and, in particular, G. Tenekides (Slylianos Seferiades, 1873-1951) (in Greek), at xv-xxiv.
2. For a complete list of publications by Seferiades, see ibid., at xxv-xxvi.
3. S. Seferiades, (Courses on International Public Law) (in Greek), 2 Volumes;
4. vol. 1, To (International Public Law of Peace) (1920)
5. vol. 2, (International Disputes and Conflicts) (1928-1929) [herein-after Courses on International Public Law].
6. As a consequence, the student of Seferiades can benefit from a number of biographies of Giorgos Seferis, where a useful amount of information can be collected about his father. Among those biographies, those that stand out are R. Beaton, (George Seferis - Waiting for an Angel. A Biography, Greek translation) (2004)
7. I. Tsatsou, (My Brother Giorgos Seferis) (in Greek) (1974).
8. S. Seferiades, (Moral Armament) (in Greek) (1935) [hereinafter Moral Armament].
9. S. Seferiades, Eine Rundfrage der Friedenswarte über das Problem der Konsultation, Die Friedens-Warte (1939), at 35-40.
10. S. Seferiades, To (The Future of International Public Law) (in Greek) (1919) [hereinafter The Future of International Public Law].
11. Debates about the compatibility of international law with non-democratic systems of governance have been popular in international law writing since the interwar and post war periods: See, e.g., S. E. Edmunds, The Lawless Law of Nations: An Exposition of the Prevailing Arbitrary International Legal System in Relation to its Influence upon Civil Liberty, Disclosing it as the Last Bulwark of Absolutism Against the Political Emancipation of Man (1925)
12. G. Schwarzenberger, International Law and Totalitarian Lawlessness (1943). These debates have become reinvigorated since the end of the Cold War.
13. See, e.g., Reisman, 'Islamic Fundamentalism and Its Impact on International Law and Politics', in M. W. Janis and C. Evans (eds), Religion in International Law (2004) 357
14. Slaughter, 'International Law in a World of Liberal States', 3 EJIL (1995) 503
15. Tesón, 'The Kantian Theory of International Law', 92 Columbia Law Review (1992) 53
16. G. H. Fox and B. R. Roth (eds), Democratic Governance and International Law (2000).
17. For a critical review of such debates see S. Marks, The Riddle of All Constitutions: International Law, Democracy and the Critique of Ideology (2000)
18. and G. Simpson, Great Powers and Outlaw States: Unequal Sovereigns in the International Legal Order (2004).
19. The Future of International Public Law, supra note 6.
20. Ibid., at 5.
21. Ibid.
22. See Alvarez, 'The New International Law', 15 Grotius Society Transactions (1930) 35, at 38.
23. Brierly, 'The Shortcomings of International Law', in Sir H. Lauterpacht (ed.), The Basis of Obligation in International Law and Other Papers by the Late J. L. Brierly (1958) 68.
24. For Brierly's ideas on the matter, see the excellent intellectual portrait of the scholar by Landauer, 'J. L. Brierly and the Modernization of International Law', 25 Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law (1993) 881.
25. N. Politis, 'Le Problème des Limitations de la Souveraineté et de la Théorie de l'Abus des Droits dans les Rapports Internationaux', 6 RdC (1925) 1, at 5.
26. O. Nippold, The Development of International Law After the World War 4, (1923), at 25, who sought future 'reconstruction' of international law.
27. Alvarez writes: '[W]e may conclude that there exists a movement for the reconstruction of International Law. And in view of the crisis through which International Law is now passing, it is the duty of all international associations to study this great problem of the reconstruction of the law of nations and to agree as to the best method of realizing it'; See Alvarez, supra note 11, at 40.
28. See, e.g., B. Schmitt and H. Vedeler, The World in the Crucible 1914-1919 (1984), at 455
29. Nippold, supra note 14, at 25
30. See generally, also H. Barnes, World Politics in Modern Civilization (1930)
31. and W. Langzam, The World Since 1914 (1940).
32. For a fascinating treatment of international law's approach to the war and the birth of interwar institutions, see Kennedy, 'The Move to Institutions', 8 Cardozo Law Review (1987) 841.
33. See also the excellent account of the birth of 'modern' international law in Berman, '"But the Alternative is Despair": Nationalism and the Modernist Renewal of International Law', 106 Harvard Law Review (1993) 1793.
34. Alejandro Alvarez wrote that with the end of the war: 'Almost overnight there came into being a new psychology, a new mentality, a new ideology, the fruit of new circumstances and environment, as well as of new political, philosophic and social concepts; they repudiate many ideas and doctrines which were until then accepted without question'; see Alvarez, supra note 11, at 37.
35. See also F. P. Walters, A History of the League of Nations (Vol. I) (1954) 16.
36. The Future of International Public Law, supra note 6, at 5-12.
37. Ibid., at 13-17.
38. Ibid., at 26.
39. Courses on International Public Law (vol. I), supra note 2.
40. S. Seferiades, 'Principes généraux du droit international de la paix', 34 RdC (1930-IV) 177, at 181-487 [hereinafter 'Principes généraux'].
41. The Future of International Public Law, supra note 6, at 5 et seq;
42. Courses on International Public Law (vol. 1), supra note 2, at 7-15 and 47-107
43. 'Principes généraux', supra note 22, at 182-204 and 216-291.
44. Courses on International Public Law (vol. 1), supra note 2, at 7-8
45. The Future of International Public Law, supra note 6, at 5-6
46. 'Principes généraux', supra note 22, at 182-184.
47. Courses on International Public Law (vol. 1), supra note 2, at 7-8.
48. Ibid., at 8
49. 'Principes généraux', supra note 22, at 182-184.
50. 'Principes généraux', supra note 22, at 182-184.
51. Courses on International Public Law (vol. 1), supra note 2, at 9
52. 'Principes généraux', supra note 22, at 183.
53. Courses on International Public Law (vol. 1), supra note 2, at 30-33.
54. The Future of International Public Law, supra note 6, at 5-66.
55. Courses on International Public Law (vol. 1), supra note 2, at 8, 47 & 99.
56. 'Principes généraux', supra note 22, at 211.
57. 'The existence and then the application of rules of international law actually presuppose a certain similarity of morals and of legal conceptions between the peoples whose relations the law is called upon to govern.'
58. The Future of International Public Law, supra note 6, at 6.
59. 'Principes généraux', supra note 22, at 234.
60. Courses on International Public Law (vol. 1), supra note 2, at 15.
61. Ibid., at 10.
62. Ibid., at 10.
63. The Future of International Public Law, supra note 6, at 14.
64. Ibid., at 6-12.
65. See, e.g., H. Wheaton, Elements of International Law, Edited by J. Brown Scott (1936), at 15-16, para. 1
66. L. Oppenheim, International Law: A Treatise, vol. I, (3rd edn edited by R. F. Roxburgh, 1920), at 8-10, para. 7.
67. See, generally, Tsagourias, 'The Will of the International Community as a Normative Source of International Law', in I. F. Dekker and W. G. Werner (eds), Governance and International Legal Theory (2004) 97
68. Abi-Saab, 'La "communauté internationale" saisie par le droit. Essai de radioscopie juridique', in Boutros Boutros-Ghali Amicorum Discipulorumque Liber (1998) 81.
69. The Future of International Public Law, supra note 6, at 7
70. Courses on International Public Law (vol. 1), supra note 2, at 33.
71. The Future of International Public Law, supra note 6, at 7 (emphasis added).
72. Ibid., at 9.
73. Ibid., at 11 et seq.
74. Ibid., at 15 (emphasis added).
75. See, e.g., ibid., at 8, 14-15,
76. On this point see Marks, 'International Law, Democracy, and the End of History', in Fox and Roth, supra note 7, 532.
77. See Section 3, infra, at 19 et seq.
78. See Ibid., for a discussion on this point.
79. The Future of International Public Law, supra note 6, at 14-15.
80. Courses on International Public Law (vol. 1), supra note 2, at 33.
81. The Future of International Public Law, supra note 6, at 14 & 16-17.
82. Ibid., at 14.
83. Ibid., at 9 & 23.
84. Ibid., at 6.
85. See, e.g., N. Henshall, The Myth of Absolutism: Change and Continuity in Early Modern European Monarchy (1992), at 1-6 and 199-214. Henshall argues that standard descriptions of absolutism are misleading due to a very myopic understanding of the role of consultation and delegation of powers in their system of governance and the nature of their economic policies and objectives.
86. See, e.g., M. Beloff, The Age of Absolutism (1954), esp. at 11-27.
87. Whatever it meant to be a liberal or even a republican in modern Europe, it meant repudiating the age-old belief that monarchy is the best form of government. This often necessitated the rewriting of history, with the accusation of 'absolutism' associated with practices of European monarchy. For an excellent collection of essays on this topic, see M. van Gelderen and Q. Skinner (eds), Republicanism: A Shared European Heritage (2002), esp. vol. 1, part I, at 1 and 9-84.
88. Courses on International Public Law (vol. 1), supra note 2, at 88 et seq;
89. The Future of International Public Law, supra note 6, at 10.
90. Courses on International Public Law (vol. 1), supra note 2, at 63.
91. Ibid., at 65.
92. Ibid., at. 55-102.
93. The Future of International Public Law, supra note 6, at 8.
94. 'Principes généraux', supra note 22, at 222-223. 'Besides, the idea that for an interstate society to be governed by common rules of law it has to be composed of States having analogous political morals and a similar conception of the moral, exists in a more accentuated manner in texts adopted by the French commission which presented the principles on which the League of Nations could be established. Following those principles, indeed, the only nations to be admitted to the League of Nations under establishment shall be the "Nations constituted as States and provided with representative institutions".'
95. The Future of International Public Law, supra note 6, at 18.
96. Ibid., at 19.
97. Ibid., at 22 et seq.
98. Ibid., at 22-23.
99. Ibid., at 26.
100. Ibid., at 27.
101. T. Eagleton, Ideology - An Introduction (1991), at 58.
102. The terms 'naturalization' and 'dissimulation' used in the next few paragraphs are borrowed and adapted from the partly overlapping discussions of 'ideological modes and strategies' that can be found in Eagleton, supra note 71
103. Marks, supra note 7, at 18-25
104. J. B. Thomson, Ideology and Modern Culture: Critical Social Theory in the Era of Mass Communications (1990)
105. and Žižek, 'Introduction: The Spectre of Ideology', in S. Žižek (ed.), Mapping Ideology 1 (1994).
106. Marks, supra note 7, at 22.
107. See also Eagleton, supra note 71, at 58-61.
108. Eagleton, supra note 71, at 59.
109. Edgar, 'The 1917 Cleansings: Their Importance for the Reformist Agenda of Eleftherios Venizelos' (in Greek), in O. Dimitrakopoulos and T. Veremis (eds), (Studies on Venizelos and his Era, in Greek) (1980) 519.
110. Marks, supra note 7, at 20.
111. This is the infamous Law 4229/1929, which has stayed in history with the nickname 'Greek source'. On the topic of Law 4229/1929, see G. Katiforis, (The Legislation of the Barbarians, in Greek) (1975), at 64-76.
112. See also N. Alivizatos, 1922-1974: (Political Institutions in Crisis 1922-1974: Aspects of the Greek Experience, in Greek) (1982).
113. Moral Armament, supra note 4.
114. Ibid., at 3-4, 9 and 21.
115. Ibid., at 5.
116. Ibid., at 13 and 16-17.
117. Ibid., at 14 and 18-19.
118. Ibid., at 14 and 19-25.
119. For the project of bourgeois modernization, see, e.g., G. Mavrogordatos, Stillborn Republic: Social Coalitions and Party Strategies in Greece, 1922-1936 (1983)
120. G. Mavrogordatos and C. Hatziiosif (eds), (Venizelism and Bourgeois Modernization, in Greek) (1988)
121. O. Dimitrakopoulos and T. Veremis (eds), (Studies on Venizelos and his Era, in Greek) (1980).
122. For an interesting interwar appraisal of the statesmanship of Venizelos, see V. J. Seligman, The Victory of Venizelos: A Study of Greek Politics 1910-1918 (1920), esp. at 171-185.
123. For an appraisal along those lines, see Mavrogordatos, 'Venizelism and Bourgeois Modernization', in Mavrogordatos and Hatziiosif, supra note 84, at 9.
124. For a concise account of Greek interwar history, see R. Clogg, Concise History of Greece (2002) 46-141
125. and T. Vournas, vol. B: 1909-1940 (History of Later and Modern Greece, in Greek), (1977).
126. For the destruction of Smyrna and the Asia Minor campaign, see A. A. Pallis, Greece's Anatolian Venture - And After: A Survey of the Diplomatic and Political Aspects of the Greek Expedition to Asia Minor (1915-1922) (1937)
127. M. Housepian Dobkin, Smyrna 1922: The Destruction of a City (1971).
128. See, e.g., J. M. Landau (ed.), Ataturk and the Modernization of Turkey (1984). For mainstream accounts on the relationship between modernization and nationalism,
129. For mainstream accounts on the relationship between modernization and nationalism, see E. Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism since 1780: Program, Myth, Reality (Canto) (1992)
130. A. D. Smith, Nationalism and Modernism, A Critical Survey of Recent Theories of Nations and Nationalism (1998).
131. For a chronicle of the changes in the Greek borderline, see the informative account of D. Dakin, The Unification of Greece 1770-1923 (1972).
132. Mavrogordatos, supra note 86, at 11.
133. On the origins of the problem of land ownership and redistribution, see W. W. MacGrew, Land and Revolution in Modern Greece, 1800-1881: The Transition in the Tenure and Exploitation of Land from Ottoman Rule to Independence (1985).
134. See A. Ioannidis, (Aesthetic Discourse in the Interwar or the Quest for the Lost Wholeness, in Greek), in Mavrogordatos and Hatziiosif, supra note 84, at 369.
135. Papakosmas, (Venizelos and the Question of the Republic, 1916-1920, in Greek), in Dimitrakopoulos and Veremis, supra note 84, 485-499, at 485.
136. Ibid, at 485-490,
137. Vournas, supra note 87, at 368.
138. Edgar, supra note 75, at 519-550.
139. On Law 4229/1929, see supra note 77.
140. See Vournas, supra note 87, at 348.
141. E. Venizelos, 'The Internal Situation in Greece and the Amnesty of Political Officers', Speech of E. Venizelos in the Greek Chamber, 23 April 1920, A Literal Translation from the Official Report (pamphlet) (London, 1920), at 17.
142. Statement as published in daily newspaper ('Patris', in Greek), 22 May 1917.
143. Estimates on the exact size of the Greek population range between 25 and 50% of the total population of the city. On the position of the Greek community in the commercial life of Smyrna, see E. Frangakis-Syrett, The Commerce of Smyrna in the Eighteenth Century (1700-1820) (1992), esp. at 43-118.
144. See, generally, B. Braude and B. Lewis (eds), Christians and Jews in the Ottoman Empire: The Functioning of a Plural Society (1982).
145. S. Seferiades, Etude Critique sur la théorie de la cause (Ouvrage couronne par la Faculté de droit de Paris) (1897).
146. Beaton, supra note 3, at 33
147. Tsatsou, supra note 3, at 19.
148. His only published collection of poetry appeared one year after his retirement from academic life: S. Seferiades, (Out of My Drawer, Poems 189 5-1912, in Greek) (1939).
149. S. Seferiades, Les Jeux de Bourse en droit international privé (1902).
150. Beaton, supra note 3, at 51.
151. S. Seferiades, Réflexions sur le Boycottage en droit international (1912) [hereinafter Réflexions sur le Boycottage].
152. For an account of the monumental influence of Ataturk's arrival on the Turkish political scene, see the recent biography by A. Mango, Ataturk (1999).
153. For a brief account of the years 1908-1915 see also A. Mango, The Turks Today (2004), at 15-25.
154. S. Seferiades, Le Régime immobilier en Turquie au point de vue du droit international (1913) [hereinafter Le Régime immobilier].
155. See Tsatsou, supra note 3, at 24.
156. See Tenekides, 'Introduction',
157. in Kalogeropoulos, supra note 1, at xvi.
158. Beaton, supra note 3, at 58
159. Tsatsou, supra note 3, at 36-37.
160. Lighthouses Case Between France and Greece, Judgment of 17 March 1934, PCIJ Series A/B, No. 62 (1934).
161. S. Seferiades, 'L'échange des populations', 24 RdC (1928-IV) 307
162. 'Principes généraux', supra note 22
163. S. Seferiades, 'Le problème de l'accès de particuliers a des juridictions internationales', 51 RdC (1935-I) 1 [hereinafter 'Le problème de l'accès'].
164. Réflexions sur le Boycottage, supra note 107.
165. Le régime immobilier, supra note 109.
166. Seferiades, Le problème de l'accès de particuliers a des juridictions internationales, IDI (1929).
167. Ibid.
168. Seferiades, 'Les Tribunaux de Prises en Grèce-Leur Constitution, Leur Fonctionnement et Leur Jurisprudence', 23 Revue Générale de Droit International Public (1916) 31.
169. This can be inferred by the account in Tsatsou, supra note 3, at 36-37.
170. Seferiades, 'Chronique sur l'arrestation des consuls d'Allemagne, d'Autriche-Hongrie etc. a Salonique', 23 Revue Générale de Droit International Public (1916) 84.
171. Vournas, supra note 87, at 178-200.
172. Seferiades, 'Contribution a l'Etude du régime international de la mer de Marmara', in Mélanges Mahaim, vol. II (1935) 320.
173. Courses on International Public Law (vol. 1), supra note 2, at 38-43.
174. Ibid., at 38.
175. Ibid., at 39.
176. Ibid.
177. Ibid., at 42-43.
178. Ibid., at 41-43.
179. A. Alvarez, Le Droit International Americain. Son fondement - Sa Nature (1910).
180. M. Koskenniemi, From Apology to Utopia - The Structure of International Legal Argument (1989).
181. Seferiades, 'Aperçus sur la Coutume Juridique internationale', Revue Générale de Droit International Public (1936) 129
182. Courses on International Public Law (vol. 1), supra note 2, at 11 and 28.
183. Seferiades, Aperçus sur la Coutume Juridique internationale, supra note 131, at 172.
184. Ibid, at 189-194.
185. Ibid, at 192.
186. Courses on International Public Law (vol. 1), supra note 2, at 42.
187. 'Le problème de l'accès', supra note 114.
188. Courses on International Public Law (vol. 1), supra note 2, at 101.
189. Antonio Gramsci's views on the topic can be found in the essays written during his long years of imprisonment, the relevant selection of which was published posthumously in Italian in A. Gramsci, Gli Intellettuali e L'Organizzazione della Cultura (Intellectuals and the Organization of Culture, in Italian) (1949) (10th Reprint, 1972).
190. Ibid, at 3.
191. Ibid, at 7.
192. Ibid.
193. Ibid., at 9.
194. Ibid., at 3.
195. Ibid., at 10.
196. During the past two decades, a new stream of international legal scholarship has fore-grounded such concerns in its inquiries. See D. Kennedy, The Dark Sides of Virtue: Reassessing International Humanitarianism (2004)
197. M. Koskenniemi, The Gentle Civilizer of Nations: The Rise and Fall of International Law 1870-1960 (2002)
198. H. Charlesworth and C. Chinkin, The Boundaries of International Law - A Feminist Analysis (2000)
199. A. Anghie, Imperialism and Sovereignty and the Making of International Law (2004).
200. For a selective bibliography of newstream work see Skouteris and Korhonen, 'Under Rhodes's Eyes: The "Old" and the "New" International Law at Looking Distance', 11 Leiden Journal of International Law (1998) 429.