The European Tradition in International Law : Nicolas Politis

• Papadaki, Marilena

Abstract

This article sketches an intellectual portrait of Nicolas Politis (1872–1942), a liberal Greek jurist and a naturalized Frenchman of the interwar period. The main lines of his thought’s evolution and his socio-political engagement over the course of his life are considered typical of a new type of intellectual, the ‘government intellectual’, who appeared on the international scene at the beginning of the 20th century. The profile of the ‘government intellectual’, proposed to study his career, is closely tied to the scholar’s discourse concerning politics. It allows one to observe the emergence of a space of intellectual production and of institutional positions, relatively autonomous <it>vis-à-vis</it> specifically national considerations, but always in the service of their interests, which were in liberal thought conceived as consistent with the interests of international society. The richness of his career allows one to consider the intellectual engagement of jurists in new terms, by closely associating the strategies of individual actors with the various contexts that they had themselves contributed to creating.