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In the past, the duties of the state, as Sir Henry Maine noted long ago, were only two in number: internal order and external security.

By prevailing over other claimants for the loyalties of men, the nation-state maintained an adequate measure of certainty and order within its territorial borders.

Outside those limits it asserted, as against other states, a position of sovereign equality, and, as against the `` inferior '' peoples of the non-Western world, a position of dominance.

It became the sole `` subject '' of `` international law '' ( a term which, it is pertinent to remember, was coined by Bentham ), a body of legal principle which by and large was made up of what Western nations could do in the world arena.

( That corpus of law was a reflection of the power system in existence during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Speaking generally, it furthered -- and still tends to further -- the interests of the Western powers.

The enormous changes in world politics have, however, thrown it into confusion, so much so that it is safe to say that all international law is now in need of reexamination and clarification in light of the social conditions of the present era.