The Historical School and German International Legal Thought in the 19th Century

This article traces the influence of the German Historical School of Law around Friedrich Carl von Savigny has had on various fundamental concepts of international law during the 19th and into the beginning of the 20th century in a detailed manner. During this time, the Historical School’s radical reformulation of the notion of law as a peoples’ spiritual essence unfolding through its habitual social action allowed 19th century scholars to redefine international law as customary law and, together with notably Hegelian teleological thought, laid conceptual groundwork for the integration of themes of European cultural superiority into the doctrines and philosophy of international law. Its conceptual legacy can further be traced in the later German positivism à la Jellinek or Oppenheim with its theories on ‘common civilised consent’ as foundation of international law.