In 19th-century Europe, the juridical texture of space changed totally. Europe’s strategy moved in step with the westernization/modernization process of the Ottoman empire and its attempt to survive the crisis and keep up with the first ‘global’ competition. This article investigates the effects of the ambiguous European inclusion/exclusion policies towards the empire, highlighting the interplay of the Christian paradigm and international law. The aim is to reveal the responsibilities and wrongs of international law as a premature and undefined law, and to apply the appealing concept of ‘entanglement’ to a new, more global historiography on the fall of the Ottoman empire.