Legal and general history is two neighbouring academic fields. The first one being a rather small part within more general legal studies, while the other deals with law as just one part of a much larger field, which includes for instance political, social, cultural, environmental and military aspects. In Actors and structures context, anyone trying to influence international law has to grapple with two kinds of structures. On one hand, there is the social and historical context where and when the intervention takes place. On the other hand, law is itself a structure with a certain kind of inertia. To the extent that the latter also binds the former through institutional arrangements, there is a dialectical connection between the two. Lawyers are not only the products of their historical circumstances; they also have to navigate within legal structures that are the result of struggles engaged in by their predecessors.