In Defence of International Law, or Szymon Rundstein’s Idea of the Law of Nations

Abstract

The research purpose of the article is to present Szymon Rundstein’s views on international law in the time of World War I, when a dispute was renewed about its essence and role among jurists. Rundstein unequivocally sided with the defenders of international law, arguing that its existence was based on the eternally existing idea of the law of nations. The research objective of the article is to formulate an answer to the question of what the idea of the law of nations was. These reflections can be considered not only from the perspective of the philosophy of law, analysing the concept of the idea of the law of nations, but also from the perspective of the history of political and legal thought, as a lawyer from Warsaw developed a doctrine concerning both the law and the ways of development of international politics.

Keywords

• szymon rundstein
• international law
• idea of the law of nations
• international politics
• philosophy of law