ABSTRACT
EARLY DEVELOPMENT OF INTERNATIONAL LAW International law, as we know it today, primarily developed from the ideas and practices of Western civilization.1 Its existence in modern form covers only the past 500 years or so, but its roots extend into the distant past. Some have attempted to link the modern law with the customs and usages of pre-Greek civilizations, but our present law cannot claim such an impressive genealogy. We can, however, find evidence in contemporary law of rules and procedures that parallel those in the earliest documents describing relations between states. For instance, a treaty concluded in the very dawn of recorded history-about 2100 B.C.—between the rulers of two communities in Mesopotamia, Lagash and Umma, provided for the settlement of a boundary dispute through arbitration and involved the taking of solemn oaths for observance of the agreement. Any examination of Hebrew, Assyrian, Babylonian, Hindu, and early Chinese records in the fields of warfare and diplomacy reveals many customs and usages corresponding to the practice of modern states.2 Do not assume, however, that we can trace the modern law directly to those early civilizations. The world of antiquity lacked the modern concept of a community or society of nations. The interests of each unit were local and parochial, not “international.”
