Abstract
The relationship between religion and international law is close but nowadays little studied or analyzed. There are several causes in this lack of attention. Considering the fact that the international law is one of products of Western European civilization and Christianity played an important part in the civilization, we assume that the study of the relation between them is necessary for international lawyers. This paper is intended to analyze what is the contribution of religion, particularly Judaism, to the solution of the problems with which international law deals. The contribution of Judaism to the development of international law has been completely neglected by modern scholars. In two spheres, however, it seems possible to find close direct contact between the Jews and international law:one is in Jewish history itself and another is in Jewish law-the halacha. There are several important points of the Jewish influence on international law. For instance, the Jewish influence on the development of the modern concept of human rights is clear, the scholars and wirters such as Grotius and Pufendorf could obtain something value from Jewish sources, and so forth. The Jewish influence on international law was all second-hand, but Judaism plays an important part on the development of international law because of the happy combination of law and morality which gives all Jewish law its peculiar quality.
