‘Jus Gentium’ and the Law of Nature in Asia (1956)

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. H. Alexandrowicz
Keyword(s):  
State Law ◽  
The West ◽  
Law Of Nature ◽  
Strong Emphasis ◽  
Law Of Nations ◽  
Independent States ◽  
The Law ◽  
International Character ◽  
Mutually Independent ◽  
Inter State

This chapter discusses the development of the law of nations in Asia. China, for instance, developed their own notions of inter-state law and practice with a strong emphasis on the institution of vassal states who acknowledged the supreme authority of the imperial suzerain. There seems to have been legal equality among these mutually independent states in the Chinese Commonwealth. Diplomatic intercourse was well known and envoys enjoyed immunity, though to a lesser degree than in the West. In India, the relations between rulers led to the development of principles of an international or quasi-international character. Kautilya’s Arthashastra bears witness to the existence of a well-defined set of rules which prevailed in the various ‘circles’ of states. Interstate law in India knew humanitarian rules of warfare, the inviolability of envoys, the vassal–suzerain relationship, and principles relating to maritime intercourse.

Albericus Gentilis

1911 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 665-679 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Willing Balch
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
State Law ◽  
Imperial Rome ◽  
Law Of Nations ◽  
The World ◽  
Pax Romana ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
The Law ◽  
Inter State

Modern international law is generally regarded as beginning with the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. But it is necessary to go much further back in the history of the world for the beginnings of the law governing the intercourse of nations. The Greek states had a rudimentary inter-state law that regulated their relations. Thus they practiced arbitration in a way among themselves: they recognized the sanctity of the person of heralds, and they followed other recognized customs in their dealings one with another. When Rome and Carthage and other nations were struggling for the mastery of the world, the beginnings of a law of nations were recognized and practiced between them. Upon, however, practically all the known world coming under the sway of imperial Rome, all possibility as well as need of a law of nations was wanting, and as a result the faltering beginnings of an international law as recognized among the Greek states and then by the Powers surrounding the Mediterranean, were extinguished by the extension of the Pax Romana to all the known world.

Mogul Sovereignty and the Law of Nations (1955)

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. H. Alexandrowicz
Keyword(s):  
Internal Structure ◽  
Legal Status ◽  
The West ◽  
Legal Nature ◽  
Law Of Nations ◽  
The Family ◽  
The Law ◽  
State Relations ◽  
Inter State

The historian of the law of nations, when considering Mogul sovereignty, is concerned with two main problems: first, the legal status of the Mogul Empire within the family of nations and the type of law applicable to inter-state relations at that time; and second, the internal structure of the Empire, which was essentially based on a network of suzerain–vassal relationships. This chapter discusses a few characteristic events to shed more light on these problems. Such events may be chosen from Anglo-Mogul relations in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries. The period between the reign of Emperor Akbar and Emperor Aurangzeb saw the greatest expansion of the Empire and one of the most remarkable episodes during this period—an episode which helps to illustrate the legal nature of relations between India and the West, the embassy of Sir Thomas Roe to the Court of Agra.

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.

The Influence of the Law of Nature Upon International Law in the United States

1909 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 547-561 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jesse S. Reeves
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Modern Science ◽  
The United States ◽  
Natural Rights ◽  
Roman Law ◽  
Traditional System ◽  
Law Of Nature ◽  
Law Of Nations ◽  
The Law ◽  
Scholastic Philosophy

The political philosophers of the eighteenth century might have been surprised if told that their favorite doctrine of natural rights was the intellectual successor of certain theories of the Roman law and of the scholasticism of Saint Thomas Aquinas. Yet the “ state of nature,” which filled so large a place in the discussion of natural rights, has been called “ an exaggerated perversion of what, in traditional system, was quite a subordinant point” From Locke to Hooker, and back through the scholastic philosophy, the germ of natural rights has been traced to the jus naturœ and the jus gentium of the Roman law. Grotius and his successors preserved the tradition in another and more direct line. The continuity of Grotius with the doctrine of the Roman law was complete. “ The law of nature,” said Holland, “ is the foundation, or rather the scaffolding, upon which the modern science of International Law was built up by Gentilis and Grotius. The change in the meaning of jus gentium made by Grotius and his successors, and the influence which the jus naturœ had in forming the new conception of the law of nations can only be referred to here.

Sources in the Modern Tradition

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Randall Lesaffer
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
International Law ◽  
Roman Law ◽  
Grand Narrative ◽  
Historical Source ◽  
Law Of Nature ◽  
Modern Age ◽  
Law Of Nations ◽  
State Practice ◽  
The Law

This chapter considers how the modern historiography of international law has ascribed pride of place to the jurisprudence of the law of nature and nations of the Early Modern Age. Whereas the writers from this period have had a significant influence on nineteenth-century international law, their utility as a historical source has been far overrated. The development of the law of nations in that period was much more informed by State practice than historians have commonly credited. Moreover, historiography has overestimated the novelty of the contribution of Early Modern jurisprudence and has almost cast its major historical source of inspiration into oblivion: the late medieval jurisprudence of canon and Roman law. It is thus important to restore medieval jurisprudence to its rightful place in the grand narrative of the evolution of international law.

From Jerusalem to the Rest of the West Bank: Israel's Strategies of Annexation

2019 ◽  
Vol 53 (01) ◽  
pp. 6-19
Author(s):  
Raja Shehadeh
Keyword(s):  
West Bank ◽  
Geneva Convention ◽  
Nation State ◽  
State Law ◽  
Palestinian Authority ◽  
The West ◽  
Half Century ◽  
Legal Restrictions ◽  
The Law

AbstractSince 1967, despite international legal restrictions, Israel has sought to annex Eastern Jerusalem. Fifty-one years later, it publicly declared in its Nation State Law: “Jerusalem, complete and united, is the capital of Israel.” In the West Bank, Israel initiated on the ground changes that furthered annexation without formally declaring any part of it as annexed. For decades, Al-Haq has documented the gradual encroachment of occupation by successive Israeli administrations. And yet the Palestinian leadership failed to successfully utilize the law to support its case. Nor could the 190 states, parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention, be convinced to enforce the provision in the Convention which bids the High Contracting Parties to “ensure respect for the present convention in all circumstances.” During the Oslo negotiations, Israel succeeded in leaving Jerusalem and the Jewish settlements outside of the jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority. Given these patterns across nearly a half-century of history, it seems likely that Israel will declare the full annexation of the West Bank in part or in its entirety precisely because it has succeeded in accomplishing this in the case of Jerusalem.

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