International Relations
Unbounded Empire: Sovereigntism & International Law in US Foreign Relations, 1881-1945
Over the past seventy years and especially during the post-Cold War era a consensus has emerged that that prior to 1940, US foreign policy was marked by a uniquely idealistic and legalistic commitment to constraint, multilateralism, and, above all, the peaceful resolution of international disputes through international law. This commitment is usually attributed to the country’s allegedly exceptional liberal character. My manuscript challenges this consensus by demonstrating that between 1881 and 1945 US foreign policy was characterized not by legalism but by sovereigntism, meaning the defense of national sovereignty and freedom of action, and, consequently, was often well outside of the mainstream in its approach to international law. I make this argument not by diminishing the role of law in the foreign policy of the United States but by demonstrating that even those who engaged closely with the law, including lawyers in the White House, the State Department, and the Senate were part of the driving force behind the country’s sovereigntist foreign policy. The result is a groundbreaking new history of US engagement with international law during this era of supposed legalism which overturns much of the existing scholarship and highlights forgotten traditions of unilateralism that link this formative period to the present day.