 This course is about international law, but as you've probably heard in the teaser, one can be even more precise by saying that it is about public international law. What does that mean? Using the adjective public to describe international law is in contrast to private international law. Private international law is the law applicable to the relations between individuals and corporations when those relations are international, that is, when those relations are not entirely located in one state. Private international law is at issue, for instance, when a Frenchman marries an Argentinian girl in Moscow, they settle and buy a flat in South Korea, have kids in Australia and they finally divorce in South Africa. Many questions will arise, which church may actually adjudicate on the divorce and which law applies to it? Private international law is also at stake, for instance, if a Chinese company sells goods to a Californian company and that those goods are shipped on board a Danish cargo which is insured in Switzerland and which sinks off the coast of India because of the collision with an oil tanker flagging the flag of Panama. Well the same questions arise, which court may hear the case and which law applies? Private international law is sometimes called conflict of laws because it is about resolving the conflict between the various domestic laws and jurisdictions that could potentially apply in a case and choosing the right one. That choice is usually to be made by application of domestic rules or by rules that are common to states and the rules that are contained in treaties that those states have contracted. Private international law is a very important field of law today, but this course will not address those transnational private law issues. Rather the course will address the law applicable between public entities that are engaged in international relations. It will be about the law of what the newspapers call the international community. Public international law, or to make it short international law, is sometimes called the law of nations. In Roman times, Roman law was applicable between the citizens of Rome while the law applicable between the Roman Republic or the Roman Empire and the tribes and kingdoms of the rest of the world, that law was called Eus Gentium. Eus Gentium was common to both the Romans and the rest of the world. It was said to be common to both because it was said to derive from reason and was close to natural law. Eus Gentium was human, whereas Eusebile was specific to a people, the Roman people. Today international law is still referred to as le droit des gens in French or Volkerrecht in German or Volkerrecht in Dutch, which are all translations of the old Euse Gentium. International law may still be called by its Roman name today and treaties between kingdoms, cities and empires may have existed for thousands of years and in fact one of the oldest recorded treaties in human history is the peace treaty of Kadesh which had been contracted around 1259 BC between the Hittites and the Egyptians. However, the intellectual and structural foundation of international law as we know it today is much more recent and this is what we are going to see in the next video.