III Regions, I Africa and Arabia, 16 Africa North of the Sahara and Arab Countries

In his speech at the International Law Academy in the Hague in 1923, Baron Korff said: ‘le droit international est aussi ancien que la civilisation en général, et il est réellement une conséquence nécessaire et inévitable de toute civilisation’.1 This means that the history of international law did not start with the peace treaty of Westphalia in 1648, and that it was not only a European invention. Although in its current meaning, international law coincides with the concept of the nation-state, its origins go further back in history, and helped establish rules...