David Dudley Field and the Technologial Sesnibility of International Law Codification

Technology has long been taken for granted as a given in histories and theories of international law. This Article proposes a new way of looking at international law by examining the epistemic influence of technology on international lawyers and proponents of codification, such as David Dudley Field. While the late nineteenth century has been characterized by international legal scholars as one of colonialism and empire, liberal internationalism, and international legal positivism, these accounts have not emphasized the significant role that technology played in helping shape ideas about the world and how it should best be governed. Moreover, despite his significant role in the early institutions of international law as a professional discipline, there is scant international legal scholarship on David Dudley Field.

This Article will foreground technology by discussing some of the ways in which telegraphic cables and communications shaped Field’s technological sensibility that motivated efforts of codification of international law. This sensibility both informed efforts to professionalize and codify international law, and at the same time, showed the ways in which the international legal profession renews itself through reform projects, or the extension of existing rules, in the face of new technologies.