 The English phrase “international law” was first coined by the utilitarian philosopher, Jeremy Bentham (Janis 1984). But philosophical engagement with international legal themes stretches back to writings on natural law in ancient Greece and Rome. Philosophers in this tradition—such as Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, and the Stoics—advanced the idea of a universal normative order over and above the laws and customs found in particular societies that is discoverable through the exercise of ordinary human, or “natural”, reason (Nussbaum 2019: 18–96). In the Middle Ages, Christian beliefs framed the idea of normative universalism which, at times, was cynically deployed to justify the wrongs of Christian rulers but, at its best, provided the basis for subjecting their conduct to moral censure, as the criticisms of the Conquistadores in some of the Spanish Scholastics illustrate (Pagden 2003; Pagden &amp; Lawrence 1991).