Writing this book would not have been possible without the input of many friends and colleagues. I thank Antonietta Di Blase, Francesco Francioni, Alisdair Gillespie, Vaughan Lowe, Petros Mavroidis, Amanda Perry Kessaris, Daniel Sarooshi, Hildegard Schneider, David Sugarman, and Ana Filipa Vrdoljak, for many inspiring conversations on international law and for their mentoring and support. I thank Tomer Broude, Guy Fiti Sinclair, Caroline Foster, Cerian Griffiths, Peter Haggenmacher, Randall Lesaffer, Lucas Lixinski, Peter Macalister-Smith, Makane Moïse Mbengue, Julian Davis Mortenson, Janne Nijman, Laura Venturini, Michael Weibel, and the two anonymous reviewers for generous comments and helpful suggestions on earlier drafts. The usual disclaimer applies. Gianfranco Borrelli, Antonietta Di Blase, Machteld Nijsten, and Tullio Scovazzi kindly provided me with copies of hard-to-locate publications and documents.
I wrote part of this book while I was a Grotius Senior Research Scholar at the University of Michigan Law School. The scholarship gave me the time to refine and develop the arguments presented in the book. Therefore, I would like to thank that institution, their staff, and my temporary colleagues in Ann Arbor, for providing an ideal environment for writing, their warm welcome, and terrific support in my research. In particular, I would like to thank Isabella Krauter, Julian Davis Mortenson, Diane Nafranowicz, Francis Tom Temprosa, and Stephanie Wiederhold for stimulating conversations. The financial support provided by the Society of Legal Scholars’ Research Activities Fund is gratefully acknowledged.
I reserve special gratitude for Luigi Lacchè, Professor of Legal History at the University of Macerata and the Director of the International Centre for Gentilian Studies, and Pepe Ragoni, Former Director of the same, for their warm welcome at the University of Macerata and at the Centre respectively. Both of them showed a dedicated interest in my work and provided many valuable ideas and insights. I particularly thank Pepe Ragoni for her encouragement and support, for receiving me despite the recent earthquakes, and for generously providing me with useful, interesting, and hard-to-find materials.
The book was completed at Lancaster Law School. I thank the Law School of Lancaster University for supporting my research stays and visits across Europe and beyond as well as for providing a welcoming environment for conducting my research. I thank Agata Fijalkowski, Sophia Kopela, David Sugarman, James Summers, and Steven Wheatley at Lancaster University who, despite their own heavy commitments, have given me invaluable advice and encouragement since the inception of this project.
Parts of this book were presented at the Society of Legal Scholars’ Annual Conferences in 2016 and 2018, held at St Catherine’s College, University of Oxford, and at Queen Mary University of London respectively, as well as at the European Society of International Law’s Annual Conferences in 2017 and 2019, held respectively at the University of Federico II in Naples and at the University of Athens, Greece. Parts of this book were also presented at the roundtable of the American Society of International Law Interest Group on International Legal Theory on ‘New Perspectives in International Legal Theory’ that took place at the 2019 American Society of International Law Annual Meeting in Washington DC and at the 10th Anniversary Annual Conference of the Japan Chapter of the Asian Society of International Law, held at Meiji Gakuin University in Tokyo on 14 July 2019. Parts of this book were also presented at King’s College, University of London, and at the Universities of Newcastle, Leuven, Michigan, Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies, and Trieste. I am grateful to Rosemary Auchmuty, Freya Baetens, David Harlan Cohen, Evan Criddle, Ioanna Gomula, Federico Ortino, Amanda Perry-Kessaris, Gwen Seabourne, Thomas Skouteris, Gerry Simpson, Ekaterina Yahyaoui Krivenko, and the participants of the conferences for their valuable input. The usual disclaimer applies.
I am grateful to Randall Lesaffer, Director of the book series on the History of International Law at Brill, for welcoming my book in the series. I am deeply indebted to him for his valuable comments, mentorship, and guidance. I also
On a personal note, I am indebted to Lidia Sciaudone for her excellent scholarship. Thanks to her outstanding, exacting, and inspiring teaching of Latin more than two decades ago, I could read Gentili’s works in Latin. I am grateful to my husband, Gianluca, without whose loving support this work would not have been completed. I thank my daughter, Ester Susanna, for being like ‘the foam on the sea, which whitens the waves’, the clouds ‘which form and disperse in the clear sky; and … other light and wandering things’. 1 I also thank my parents, Lidiana and Carlo, for being wonderful parents and extraordinary nonni. Finally, I dedicate this book to my family, for encouraging me in every possible way.
V.V.
Umberto Saba, ‘Ritratto della mia Bambina’ [1920], Canzoniere, in Umberto Saba, Tutte le Poesie, A. Stara (ed) (Milano: Mondadori 1978) (‘Di tante parvenze che s’ammirano al mondo, io ben so a quali posso la mia bambina assomigliare. Certo alla schiuma, alla marina schiuma che sull’onde biancheggia … anche alle nubi, insensibili nubi che si fanno e disfanno in chiaro cielo; e ad altre cose leggere e vaganti’.)