The chapter starts with a brief history of international law, focusing on the discipline’s colonial origins, the ‘civilising mission’ of global powers, and the rise of ‘imperial humanitarianism’ in the nineteenth century. These global events are juxtaposed with the impact they have had on Cypriot perceptions of identity during the island’s colonial period. It then proceeds with an introduction of the relevant international legal framework, distinguishing between the law on the prohibition of the use of force (jus ad bellum) and the law regulating conduct during armed hostilities (jus in bello). It closes with a legal-historical survey on Cyprus and the global decolonisation movement, the legal significance of the EOKA emergency in 1955, and the earliest instances of inter-communal violence.