Ending the Sharp War: Paradigm Shift & the History of International Humanitarian Law

This thesis analyses the history of the law of war from the perspective of intellectual history. It maps how changes in the social, political, and legal context between the late 19th century and the mid-20th century impacted the discourses of war and its regulation. Specifically, it argues that the development of modern international humanitarian law in the 20th century is the product of the collapse of the prevailing 19th century Euro- and US centric paradigm of “Sharp “War”, as a result of the consolidation of competing discourses about war and the international system coming from new and/or reinvigorated actors in the Global South, the Communist world and the humanitarian movement