International law is a result of the past and yet its history is being constantly reshaped in the image of contemporary times. This is so because all histories written about the past are invariably conditioned by the tendency, of which no historical work is absolutely free, to look at past events, actors, institutions, processes, and texts through the lenses of contemporary values, concepts, and circumstances. These new histories, which rethink the past in the present, influence our perception of contemporary matters in international law and also inform our understandings of how they may potentially unfold. However, while all historical research plays a performative narrative function, with a hidden potential to shape both contemporary and future events, this potential is particularly acute in international law, understood as the living legal system of a globally diverse international community of states and peoples. It is in this, albeit partial, sense that every epoch remakes the history of international law in its own image.