The Law of Nations. Emer de Vattel

      The Law of Nations, though so noble and important a subject, has not hitherto been treated of with all the care it deserves. The greater part of mankind have therefore only a vague, a very incomplete, and often even a false notion of it. The generality of writers, and even celebrated authors, almost exclusively confine the name of the Law of Nations to certain maxims and customs which have been adopted by different nations, and which the mutual consent of the parties has alone rendered obligatory on them. This is confining within very narrow bounds a law so extensive in its own nature, and in which the whole human race are so intimately concerned; it is at the same time a degradation of that law, in consequence of a misconception of its real origin.

      There certainly exists a natural law of nations, since the obligations of the law of nature are no less binding on states, on men united in political society, than on individuals. But, to acquire an exact knowledge of that law, it is not sufficient to know what the law of nature prescribes to the individuals of the human race. The application of a rule to various subjects can no otherwise be made than in a manner agreeable to the nature of each subject. Hence it follows that the natural law of nations is a particular science, consisting in a just and rational application of the law of nature to the affairs and conduct of nations or sovereigns. All those treatises, therefore, in which the law of nations is blended and confounded with the ordinary law of nature, are incapable of conveying a distinct idea or a substantial knowledge of the sacred law of nations.

      The Romans often confounded the law of nations with the law of nature, giving the name of “the law of nations” (Jus Gentium) to the law of nature, as <iv> being generally acknowledged and adopted by all civilised nations.^* The definitions given by the emperor Justinian, of the law of nature, the law of nations, and the civil law, are well known. “The law of nature” says he, “is that which nature teaches to all animals”:^† thus he defines the natural law in its most extensive sense, not that natural law which is peculiar to man, and which is derived as well from his rational as from his animal nature. “The civil law,” that emperor adds, “is that which each nation has established for herself, and which peculiarly belongs to each state or civil society. And that law, which natural reason has established among all mankind, and which is equally observed by all people, is called the law of nations, as being a law which all nations follow.”^‡ In the succeeding paragraph the emperor seems to approach nearer to the sense we at present give to that term. “The law of nations,” says he, “is common to the whole human race. The exigencies and necessities of mankind have induced all nations to lay down and adopt certain rules of right. For wars have arisen, and produced captivity and servitude, which are contrary to the law of nature; since, by the law of nature, all men were originally born free.”^§ But, from what he adds— that almost all kinds of contracts, those of buying and selling, of hire, partnership, trust, and an infinite number of <v> others, owe their origin to that law of nations,—it plainly appears to have been Justinian’s idea, that, according to the situations and circumstances in which men were placed, right reason has dictated to them certain maxims of equity, so founded on the nature of things, that they have been universally acknowledged and adopted. Still this is nothing more than the law of nature which is equally applicable to all mankind.

      The Romans, however, acknowledged a law whose obligations are reciprocally binding on nations: and to that law they referred the right of embassies. They had also their fecial law, which was nothing more than the law of nations in its particular relation to public treaties, and especially to war. The feciales were the interpreters, the guardians, and, in a manner, the priests of the public faith.^*

      The moderns are generally agreed in restricting the appellation of “the law of nations” to that system of right and justice which ought to prevail between nations or sovereign states. They differ only in the ideas they entertain of the origin whence that system arose, and of the foundations upon which it rests. The celebrated Grotius understands it to be a system established by the common consent of nations; and he thus distinguishes it from the law of nature: “When several persons, at different times and in various places, maintain the same thing as certain, such coincidence of sentiment must be attributed to some general cause. Now, in the questions before us, that cause must necessarily be one or the other of these two—either a just consequence drawn from natural principles, or a universal consent. <vi> The former discovers to us the law of nature, and the latter, the law of nations.”^†

      That great man, as appears from many passages in his excellent work, had a glimpse of the truth: but as he had the task of extracting from the rude ore, as it were, and reducing into regular shape and form, a new and important subject which had been much neglected before his time, it is not surprising, that,—having his mind burthened with an immense variety of objects, and with a numberless train of quotations which formed a part of his plan,—he could not always acquire those distinct ideas so necessary in the sciences. Persuaded that nations or sovereign powers are subject to the authority of the law of nature, the observance of which he so frequently recommends to them,—that learned man, in fact, acknowledged a natural law of nations, which he somewhere calls the internal law of nations: and perhaps it will appear that the only difference between him and us lies in the terms. But we have already observed, that, in order to form this natural law of nations, it is not sufficient simply to apply to nations what the law of nature decides with respect to individuals. And besides, Grotius, by his very distinction, and by exclusively appropriating the name of “the law of nations” to those maxims which have been established by the common consent of mankind, seems to intimate, that sovereigns, in their transactions with each other, cannot insist on the observance of any but those last-mentioned maxims,—reserving the internal law for the direction of their own consciences. If—setting out with the idea that political societies or nations live, with respect to each other, in a reciprocal independence, in the state of nature, and that, as political bodies, they are subject to the natural law—Grotius had moreover considered that the law must <vii> be applied to these new subjects in a manner suitable to their nature,—that judicious author would easily have discovered that the natural law of nations is a particular science; that it produces between nations even an external obligation wholly independent of their will; and that the common consent of mankind is only the foundation and source of a particular kind of law called the Arbitrary Law of Nations.

      Hobbes, in whose work we discover the hand of a master, notwithstanding his paradoxes and detestable maxims,—Hobbes was, I believe, the first who gave a distinct though imperfect idea of the law of nations. He divides the law of nature into that of man, and that of states: and the latter is, according to him, what we usually call the law of nations. “The maxims,” he adds, “of each of these laws are precisely the same: but as states once established assume personal properties, that which is termed the natural law when we speak of the duties of individuals, is called the law of nations when applied to whole nations or states.”^* This author has well observed, that the law of nations is the law of nature applied to states or nations. But we shall see in the course of this work, that he was mistaken in the idea that the law of nature does not suffer any necessary change in that application,—an idea from which he concluded that the maxims of the law of nature and those of the law of nations are precisely the same.

      Puffendorf declares that he unreservedly subscribes to this opinion espoused by Hobbes.^* He has not therefore separately treated of the law of nations, <viii> but has every-where blended it with the law of nature properly so called.

      Barbeyrac, who performed the office of translator and commentator to Grotius and Puffendorf, has approached much nearer to the true idea of the law of nations. Though the work is in every body’s hands,