¹ Book of Han (Hanshu) (the official records of the former Han Dynasty, edited in the first century A.D.).

² It is highly probable that these three points are, to a certain extent, applicable to all regions dominated or colonized by the European powers. On the extra-European experiences regarding international law, see the relevant chapters in The Oxford Handbook of the History of International Law (Bardo Fassbender & Anne Peters eds., 2012).

³ This fact suggests that the notion of “multipolarity,” implied in the current criticism of Euro-centrism, would not be appropriate to the analyses and discussions which have some concern with the present status of international law.

⁴ But this is not a particular issue of international law, since any law requires interpretation. The only difference between international law and municipal law in this respect is that the latter normally has a system that holds authority to decide which interpretation is correct and to enforce the decision, while the former does not.