In Search of a Legal Conscience: Juridical Reformism in the Mid-19th Century Peace Movement

The rise of modern international law as an autonomous scientific discipline in the early 1870s can be considered the culmination of multiple legal and extra-legal processes which trace their origins back to much earlier in the century. Several decades before the founders of the Institut de Droit International declared themselves the “legal conscience of the civilized world”, other societal groups had already expressed profound disaffection with the existing law of nations, which they viewed as inherently insufficient to guarantee lasting stability amongst civilized states. The conferences of the “Friends of Peace”, held between 1843 and 1851 in several European cities, featured many jurists who routinely employed legal modes of reasoning to communicate and advance legalistic objectives such as mandatory international adjudication and the codification of international law.