Law, the State, and the International Community, Vol. I, A Commentary on the Development of Legal, Political, and International Ideals; Vol. II, Extracts Illustrating the Growth of Theories and Principles of Jurisprudence, Government, and The Law of Nations

1940 ◽  
Vol 89 (2) ◽  
pp. 257
Author(s):  
Alexander N. Sack ◽  
James Brown Scott
Keyword(s):  
International Community ◽  
The State ◽  
Law Of Nations ◽  
The Law

Hobbes among the Classic Jurists

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Boucher
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
International Law ◽  
The State ◽  
Law Of Nature ◽  
Law Of Nations ◽  
Complete Identification ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Hedley Bull ◽  
Hans Morgenthau

The classic foundational status that Hobbes has been afforded by contemporary international relations theorists is largely the work of Hans Morgenthau, Martin Wight, and Hedley Bull. They were not unaware that they were to some extent creating a convenient fiction, an emblematic realist, a shorthand for all of the features encapsulated in the term. The detachment of international law from the law of nature by nineteenth-century positivists opened Hobbes up, even among international jurists, to be portrayed as almost exclusively a mechanistic theorist of absolute state sovereignty. If we are to endow him with a foundational place at all it is not because he was an uncompromising realist equating might with right, on the analogy of the state of nature, but instead to his complete identification of natural law with the law of nations. It was simply a matter of subject that distinguished them, the individual and the state.

On the State of War and of Peace

2019 ◽  
pp. 142-192
Author(s):  
Jean Allain
Keyword(s):  
Dispute Settlement ◽  
The State ◽  
Third Party ◽  
War And Peace ◽  
Law Of Nations ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Right ◽  
Peace Treaties

Book Three has Rayneval taking the reader through the Law of Nations as it relates to war and peace. A focus is placed on the origins, causes, effects, and conduct of war both on land and at sea. The right of conquest in considered, including prisoners, hostages, as well as civilians in conquered territory. This Book also examines the various principles governing alliances and the role of Neutral Powers in times of war. Where the seas are concerned, Rayneval considers the role of Neutrals Powers, of the right to visit in times of war, of Letters of Marque, and the taking of Prizes. Where peace is concerned, Rayneval speaks of the nature and obligations flowing from peace treaties and invokes mediation as the sole basis of third-party dispute settlement.

Nation to Nation Relations

2019 ◽  
pp. 100-141
Author(s):  
Jean Allain
Keyword(s):  
Balance Of Power ◽  
The State ◽  
Law Of The Sea ◽  
Internal Dynamics ◽  
Law Of Nations ◽  
European System ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Relationship

In Book Two, the emphasis of Rayneval’s text shifts from the development of the Nation and the internal dynamics of the State to consider the relationship between Nations via the Law of Nations. This Book considers the essence of the State, both in regard to independence and sovereignty. It provides an understanding of trade between Nations and of alliances and the European system of Balance of Power. Rayneval sets out a number of technical elements of the Law of Nations as well, including the acquisition of territory, of boundaries, of the treatment of foreigners, of the law of the sea, of reprisals, and of the titles and rank of diplomatic agents.

The Obligation to Ratify Treaties

1919 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 389-405 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Eugene Harley
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
The State ◽  
Law Of Nations ◽  
The Law

One of the earliest examples of a sort of ratification is found in the treaty between Justinian and the Persian King, Chosroes, in 561 A. D. In this case the sovereigns agreed to accept that which their plenipotentiaries had promised and agreed upon. The French-Swiss alliance of May 28, 1777, was sanctioned by solemn oaths. It was the custom in earlier times to take hostages to insure ratification; this Grotius believed entirely proper. The oath gave way to a mere act or declaration of ratification.Grotius likened a plenipotentiary to a mandatory, holding that all agreements reached by him were binding upon the sovereign from the time of signature, unless the secret instructions were transcended. Thus he regarded ratification as a mere form, not affecting the validity of the treaty. Likewise Martens, writing in 1789 at the time of the adoption of the Constitution of the United States, believed that if a mandatory had not exceeded his secret instructions, all that he agreed to was binding upon the state represented, and that the law of nations required no particular ratification (ratification particulière). Pufendorf regarded treaties valid from signature and thought ratification superfluous.

Constitutional limitations on the Treatymaking Power

1941 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 462-481 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Mervyn Jones
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
International Law ◽  
The State ◽  
Modern Theory ◽  
International Agreement ◽  
Treaty Of Versailles ◽  
Head Of State ◽  
Law Of Nations ◽  
The Law

It is impossible to deny that the early rule of international law was that the head of state, either directly or through his agents, was alone competent to make treaties, which were binding upon his successors. This was natural at a time when no type of international agreement was known other than the treaty in solemn form to which monarchs were parties. Today, new types of agreement have come into being, to which the parties are not heads of states but either the state itself (as in the Treaty of Versailles, 1919) or governments or departments of state. In all these cases, and even in cases where the parties are formally the heads of states, the unit now considered to be bound is the state, through its organs. This substitution of states for monarchs as the subjects of the law of nations, at any rate in the matter of treaties, has been brought about very largely by the French and American Revolutions of the eighteenth century, and by the development of the notion of the state as an international person. The question of the competence to make treaties binding on states, who may by their laws have limited that competence, has therefore become one of great interest in modern theory.

The History of International Relations During Antiquity and the Middle Ages

1911 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 901-933 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amos S. Hershey
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
International Community ◽  
Law Of Nations ◽  
History Of ◽  
Independent States ◽  
Full Sense ◽  
General Recognition ◽  
The Law ◽  
History Of International Law ◽  
The Middle Ages

The history of international law is essentially a history of the law governing the members of the international community of states in their relations with one another. Inasmuch as the observance of well-established customs of the law of nations implies the existence of an international community of states based upon a general recognition of the fundamental principles of territorial sovereignty and legal equality of independent states, such a law (in the strict and full sense of this term) could not possibly have been developed prior to the rise of the modern European state system, at the close of the Middle Ages or during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries of our era. Nevertheless, we are by no means without evidence of the observance in intercommunity intercourse of certain rules and customs, even during antiquity and the Middle Ages, mainly with a religious sanction. This was especially the case in Greece, where there were developed rules and customs of intermunicipal law which, in many respects, bear a truly remarkable resemblance to our modern system of international jurisprudence.

Preface.

2019 ◽  
pp. 19-23
Author(s):  
Jean Allain
Keyword(s):  
French Revolution ◽  
The State ◽  
Napoleon Bonaparte ◽  
Law Of Nations ◽  
The Law ◽  
State Relations ◽  
Inter State ◽  
The French Revolution

Joseph-Mathias Gérard de Rayneval’s Preface to his Institutions du Droit de La Nature et des Gens sets out the content of his study. The Preface outlines each of the three Books and the Appendix, wherein he considers the fundamentals of the Law of Nations in the wake of the French Revolution and the coming to power of Napoleon Bonaparte. Those consideration are developed by first providing an understanding of the internal functioning of the State so as to then build an understanding of the Law of Nations. Having set out the principles which govern inter-State relations, Rayneval provides an Appendix which focus on the policy considerations for those seeking to navigate the art of governing.

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