International Law and the Totalitarian States

International law has assumed that states are independent and free to vary their national cultures and institutions at will. It permits them to organize their domestic economy, culture, opinion, and polity in a totalitarian way if they see fit. In fact, however, international law developed among states which had many cultural characteristics in common. It was originally the law governing the relations of the Christian states of Europe, all with a tradition reaching back into medieval Christendom and classical antiquity, and united by practices of maritime trade, and by commercial, religious, and educational institutions. The potential totalitarianism which the law allowed was not in fact realized because of moral and practical inhibitions. Governments wished to observe the universal mores, and even if they had not, they lacked the technical, administrative, and political means which modern despots have utilized so effectively to override these mores in the interests of concentrated power.