NOBUYOSHI FUJINAMI THE FIRSt OttOman HIStORY Of IntERnatIOnaL LaW INTERNATIONAL LAW AND THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE The nineteenth-century international law was quite Christian-centric, despite its self-proclaimed universality.1 In the guise of a seemingly sec- ular “standard of civilization,”2 the civilizational developments in the non-Christian countries were rarely acknowledged. This does not mean that all the Christian lawyers always discriminated against the non-Christians. Nor does it mean that the idea of secular international law had no influ- ence. One only needs to see the prestige Henry Wheaton’s Elements of International Law enjoyed in China and Japan.3 Nonetheless, it is unde- niable that international law often functioned as a convenient tool of Western imperialism.4 This makes the Muslim Ottomans’ interpretation of international law an interesting research subject not only for the Ottomanist historians but also for international lawyers. It was through the Muslim Ottomans’ FUJINAMI Nobuyoshi, Associate Professor, Tsuda College, Japan. 2-1-1, Tsuda-machi, Kodaira-shi, Tokyo, Japan.
[email protected] 1 This article is based on my paper presented at the 66th annual conference of the Japa- nese Society for Western History, on 22 May 2016, held on Mita Campus, Keio University, Tokyo. I am grateful to Ozawa Minoru, Kudo Akihito, Kanazawa Shusaku, and Nishiyama Akiyoshi for their valuable comments. This work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number JP25870154. 2 Gong, The Standard of “Civilization”. 3 Sato, Kindai Chugoku. 4 Anghie, Imperialism. Turcica, 48, 2017, p. 245-270. doi: 10.2143/TURC.48.0.3237141 © 2017 Turcica. Tous droits réservés.