Pax Britannica: a case study of pre-Hague Imperial laws of war

This article addresses the legal frameworks around violence mitigation in international armed conflicts as practiced by the late British Empire through the lens of broader trends across its pre-Hague external conflicts, as opposed to merely specific regions or wars in isolation. It acknowledges the need for a robust methodology to tackle the shifting and ad hoc treatment of non-Western peoples by late Imperial actors and commanders with decision-making capacity, particularly against the backdrop of our increasing public access to their correspondence and ordinances to subordinates. While traditional accounts have rejected the application of international laws of war to external conflicts against non-Western peoples, this paper contends that this preclusive method does not reconcile with the actual conduct of certain colonial commanders ‘on the spot’ across the British Empire’s frontiers.