Abstract
After the Great War, Woodrow Wilson challenged the foundations of international law based on fully sovereign states. 'Wilsonianism' as elaborated in the Fourteen Points, and in other speeches, rested on a logic that made a universalized liberal individual the locus of sovereignty in the new world order. The truly radical implications of Wilsonianism had no sterner critic than Robert Lansing, Wilson's secretary of state and one of the founders of the American Journal of International Law. Lansing held tenaciously to a positivist paradigm of international law as it had evolved by the early twentieth century. This article reconsiders the conflict between Wilson and Lansing not so much as a duel between individuals as a duel between conflicting conceptions of sovereignty and the purpose of international law in the new world order.
Repository Citation
Smith, Leonard V. 2011. "The Wilsonian Challenge to International Law." The Journal of the History of International Law 13: 179-208.
Publisher
Brill Academic Publishers
Publication Date
1-1-2011
Publication Title
Journal of the History of International Law
Department
History
Document Type
Article
DOI
https://dx.doi.org/10.1163/157180511X552081
Keywords
International law--History, International law--Philosophy, Sovereignty (Political science), Autonomy, World War, 1914-1918, Intellectual life, Influence, United States--Politics and government--1913-1921, 20th century
Document Version
post-print
Language
English
Format
text
