The Interwar Otherwise: Rewriting Liberal Histories of International Law

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 University

2 Professor of International Law, Sciences Po Law School and University of Manchester

10.22091/ijicl.2026.14988.1225

Abstract

The period we call the interwar – those years bracketed, somewhat artificially, between the catastrophe of 1914–18 and the conflagration of 1939–45 – holds a privileged place in the international legal imagination. It is habitually portrayed as laboratory and parable at once: the birth of collective security, the codification of restraints on war, the mandates system, minority protection, and a renewed faith in institutionalism; and simultaneously, the scene of failure whose denouement is taken to justify the post 1945 settlement. My starting point in this article is deliberately simple: stories about the interwar do not merely recount the past but govern the present. The writing, production, organization, narration, periodization, whitewashing, and silencing of the interwar are techniques that fabricate necessities for the present under the guise of retrospection. Choices about which events to highlight, which actors to render visible, which causalities to trace, and which silences to preserve are strategic – not benign – and they are routinely pressed into the service of what we wish to achieve now. This is as true of the interwar as of any other period. There is no single interwar with a fixed meaning across space and time. There are many interwars, each the product of a narrative decision that aligns with an agenda, a paradigm, or a perceived necessity in the present. Whether cast around collective security, imperial administration, economic ordering, racial governance, or social internationalism, each narration about the interwar is a strategic intervention.

Keywords

Main Subjects

Iranian Journal of International and Comparative Law

Articles in Press, Accepted Manuscript
Available Online from 25 May 2026

Files

Share

How to cite

Statistics