Although modern international law is now recognized as universally
applicable to all the states as soon as they emerge as independent
entities (whether members of the United Nations or not, they are
accepted as members of the ever-expanding international society, and are
bound by its rules and seek its protection), this is only a recent
phenomenon not older than the United Nations itself. Before the Second
World War, modern international law was supposed to be merely a law of
and for the civilized Western European Christian states, or states of
European origin, and applicable only between them. Not only Asian and
African states which had come to be colonized, but also the position of
independent states, such as Persia, Siam, China, Abyssinia, and the
like, was said to be anomalous. Since they belonged to different
civilizations, questions were raised as to how far relations with their
governments could be based on the rules of international law.
If that is the case, when did European international law become
universally binding? Can states, which did not, and could not,
participate in its origin and development question some of its rules,
which are inimical to their interests? How can and does this law change,
or be modified, in the absence of any supra-national legislature or
other authority? What has been the attitude and practice of these newly
independent Asian and African states towards international law, which
was largely developed by and for the benefit of the rich and
industrialized states of Western Europe and the United States, and even
more importantly, their role in its development? The author, an Asian
scholar and well-known Professor of International Law, trained and
educated in the West, has sought to deal with these and other questions
in the nine papers contained in this book.
