By dr. Joep Schenk – In historiography, nineteenth-century Europe is generally seen as a place shaped by power politics and bellicose nationalism. Rarely has the nineteenth century been perceived as a period in which common principles were enunciated and nation states established solid international bodies in order to cooperate in pursuit of limited, manageable ends. Operational to this…

By Erik de Lange MA – This sub-project is concerned with the fight against piracy and privateering. De Lange inquiries into the rise and dynamics of an international historical security regime specifically geared towards the pursuit of security at sea. Being part of the larger security culture that emerged with the 1815 Congress of Vienna, the maritime…

By dr. Constatin Ardeleanu – The 1856 Paris Treaty internationalized the Lower Danube and by a veritable revolution in international conventional law allowed non-riparian countries to regulate and technically improve the navigation of a river where riparian states would not or could not do it. The institution entrusted to enforce the free navigation principle was…

By dr. Ozan Ozavci – From Napoleon Bonaparte’s invasion of Egypt in 1798 to the interventions in the on-going civil war in Syria today, global empires, or the so-called Great Powers, have long assumed the responsibility to bring security in the Middle East. The past two centuries have witnessed their numerous military occupations to ‘liberate’,…

By Susanne Keesman MA – In 1875 fourteen western powers signed an agreement with Egypt to reform the Egyptian judicial system and thereby founded a regime that came to be known as the Mixed Courts of Egypt. These newly established courts led to a radical reform of Egypt’s nineteenth-century legal system, where consular courts, government…

By Wouter Klem MA – The cruel bombings and cold-blooded assassinations committed by reckless anarchist terrorists formed a sharp contrast with gracious reveries of Belle Époque Europe. Not merely statesmen and royals, but also the bourgeoisie and middlemen could be hit by erupting bombs in cafés and theatres from the early 1880s onwards. In the…