The Law of Nations

The Law of Nations: Or, Principles of the Law of Nature Applied to the Conduct and Affairs of Nations and Sovereigns (French: Le droit des gens) is a legal treatise on International Law by Emerich de Vattel, published in 1758.[1]

The Law of Nations
Cover page
AuthorEmerich de Vattel
CountrySwitzerland
LanguageFrench
GenreInternational Law
Publication date
1758
Published in English
1760

Synopsis

The Law of Nations has been said to have modernized the entire practice of international law.

Influence

Centuries after his death it was found that United States President George Washington had a number of overdue library books dating back over 221 years. One of them was The Law of Nations.[2][3]

Swiss editor Charles W.F. Dumas sent Benjamin Franklin three original French copies of the book. Franklin presented one copy to the Library Company of Philadelphia. On December 9, 1775, Franklin thanked Dumas:[4][5]

It came to us in good season, when the circumstances of a rising State make it necessary to frequently consult the Law of Nations.

Franklin also said that this book by Vattel, "has been continually in the hands of the members of our Congress now sitting".[6][7]

It provides at least a partial legal basis for modern conscription in the United States.[8] In the Selective Draft Law Cases (1918), upholding the Selective Service Act of 1917, the court stated:

It may not be doubted that the very conception of a just government and its duty to the citizen includes the reciprocal obligation of the citizen to render military service in case of need, and the right to compel it. Vattel, Law of Nations, book III, cc. 1 and 2. To do more than state the proposition is absolutely unnecessary in view of the practical illustration afforded by the almost universal legislation to that effect now in force.

English editions

Vattel’s Law of Nations was translated into English in 1760, based on the French original of 1758. A Dublin translation of 1787 does not include notes from the original nor posthumous notes added to the 1773 French edition. Several other English editions were based on the edition of 1760. However, an English edition from 1793 includes Vattel’s later thoughts, as did the London 1797 edition. The 1797 edition has a detailed table of contents and margin titles for subsections.[9]

Footnotes
  1. Le droit des gens ou Principes de la loi naturelle appliqués à la conduite et aux affaires des nations et des souverains. Tome 1 / par M. de Vattel, Londres : 1758 via Gallica; Le droit des gens ou Principes de la loi naturelle appliqués à la conduite et aux affaires des nations et des souverains. Tome 2 / par M. de Vattel, Londres : 1758 via Gallica
  2. Washington Post
  3. Theweek.com
  4. Emer de Vattel (1916). Charles Ghequiere Fenwick (ed.). Le droit des gens. Carnegie Institution of Washington. p. xxx. Le droit des gens Library Company of Philadelphia.
  5. http://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=DelVol02.xml&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=459&division=div1
  6. U.S. Steel Corp. v. Multistate Tax Comm'n., 434 U.S. 452, 462 (1977).
  7. http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=lldc&fileName=001/lldc001.db&recNum=635&itemLink=D?hlaw:21:./temp/~ammem_hjCR::%230010636&linkText=1
  8. Leach, Jack Franklin (1952). Conscription in the United States: Historical Background. Rutland, Vt.: C.E. Tuttle Pub. Co. p. vi. OCLC 1727243.
  9. Emer de Vattel (1844). The Law of Nations, Or the Principles of Law of Nature Apllied to the Conduct and the Affairs of Nations and Sovereigns with Three Early Essays on the Origin and Nature of Natural Law and on Luxury (PDF). Philadelphia: T. & J. W. Johnson – via Library of Congress.

http://kingdom-hawaii.org/lawintro.html

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.