Throughout the nineteenth century, international law was not only a body of legal principles that described the nature and scope of international relations, but also a framework for thinking about political space and legal borders. European actors, both jurists and diplomats, tended to characterize the society of states as being based on European civilization, while at the same time asserting that the legal principles that governed this society were universal. This dichotomy was particularly evident in the context of Ottoman-European relations, marked by a constant negotiation of issues of sovereignty, reform, intervention, and minority protection. Thus, the Ottoman Empire emerges as a key site for the discussion of the boundaries of international society.

This panel examines legal argumentation about civilization, sovereignty, and humanity across political practice. It is clear that such argumentation had a considerable impact on diplomatic practice, provincial administration, and refugee policy. Similarly, the commitment to equality that underpinned the project of international law was frequently at odds with practices that emphasized conditional forms of equality, sovereignty, and statehood. This, therefore, is a way of characterizing international law not as a fixed entity, but rather as a flexible body of argumentation that is subject to a range of contexts.

This panel focuses on the participation of the Ottomans in the development of international legal and political norms. Ottoman statesmen, diplomats, and jurists were actively involved with notions of civilization, law, and humanity. They were involved in negotiations at international meetings, constitutional arrangements in the provinces, humanitarian crises, and competing notions of law, justice, and political obligation. This demonstrates that the development of international law in the nineteenth century was not only a European phenomenon, but also a product of the Ottoman legal capacity.

This panel, through research on the development of legal thought, diplomatic practice, state practice, and humanitarian discourse, places the Ottoman Empire at the heart of the development of international legal history, which is a developing field of historiography. It argues that the development of nineteenth-century international law was a product of conflict, negotiation, and the exchange of legal thought across borders. As a result, the Ottoman world is presented not only as a subject of international law, but also as a site at which the meanings, implications, and dimensions of international law were developed, debated, and transformed.