The Spanish Origin of International Law

The fourth chapter details the conditions that led to the inception of the campaign for the Salamancan origin and describes its early phase. The first section of the chapter describes the origin of the series Classics of International Law, edited by Scott, which occasioned his collaboration with Nys for the publication of Vitoria’s lectures. Section 2 tracks the most immediate conditions of possibility leading to Scott’s earliest formulation of the Spanish origin, including a renewed interested in the history of international law. Section 3 describes how Scott turned his theory of the Salamancan origin into a campaign, first by enlisting allies, such as Camilo Barcia Trelles, among Spanish international lawyers and later by spreading his ideas within his network in Latin America. The chapter ends with an account of the publication and content of Scott’s first book on the topic, The Spanish Origin of International Law, which appeared in 1928.

Explaining Scott’s Turn to American History

The first chapter, like all others in the book, is divided in three sections. Section 1 offers an analysis of the US foreign policy discourse at the turn of the century and connects it with the growing popularity of international law within the elites. Section 2 follows Scott in his work as Secretary Root’s legal advisor at the State Department, until the two moved together to lead the newly established Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. The highlight of Scott’s government stint was the 1907 Second Hague Peace Conference, where he championed the project for an international court and created a large part of the transatlantic professional connections that would be crucial to his later projects. Section 3 describes how Scott, since 1910 a powerful administrator at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, deployed the massive resources at his disposal.

Apostles of Equality: James Brown Scott and the Feminist Cause

Chapter 6 tracks the story of an unlikely alliance between Scott and leading feminist activists Doris Stevens and Alice Paul. The first section provides a short history of the women’s rights movement in the United States and details how Paul and Stevens rose to become key figures in the battle for women’s suffrage. Section 2 tracks the early interest by feminist activists in international politics. As Paul and Stevens moved toward internationalism, Scott moved closer to the positions of women’s rights activists by becoming a supporter of the equality of sexes under nationality law. Section 3 follows the collaboration between Scott and the feminist leaders. Beginning in 1928, the collaboration would peak in 1933 with the approval at the Montevideo Pan-American Conference of two equal rights treaties.

Introduction. An American Project

The introduction sets the historiographical and political stakes of narrating and analyzing Scott’s campaign for the Spanish origin of international law, drawing on current methodological discussions and the role of the concept of equality in our political discourse. It also explains the relation of the book with previous scholarship on Scott and literature on the rise of international legal networks in the Americas in the early twentieth century. Moreover, it elaborates on the reasons for the primarily descriptive style the text adopts and on certain related choices of language. The introduction ends with an outline of the structure of the book and of the individual chapters.

International Law as Science. Scott’s Historical Case for Adjudication and the Fight against Collective Security

The third chapter revolves around the series of books on US constitutional history Scott published at the closing of the Great War. Therein, he fleshed out his case for the creation of an international court as the best tool toward the achievement of a long-lasting global peace. The first section describes Scott’s Armistice books and their background, explaining the foundations and development of the rationalist legal theory of adjudication that inspired them. The second section goes deeper into the content of the most significant of the books, The United States: A Study in International Organization, in order to contextualize it and relate it to the political debates in which it intervened. The third and closing section is centered on Scott’s role in the debate over the League of Nations Covenant and collective security in the United States.

Concluding Remarks. The Legacy of James Brown Scott and the Responsibilities of International Legal History

In the concluding remarks, I put forward some reflections on Scott’s legacy and the significance of his work to articulate a responsible approach to the history of international law today. The Spanish origin narrative resulted from Scott’s contingent choices, proving his agency in the reshaping of international legal history. A responsible self-understanding of the profession should acknowledge the relevance of individual and collective stances. As international lawyers we are situated political actors. Awareness of this condition should be reflected in the histories we write. Narratives of timeless principles or inevitable progress downplay the concrete role of human action in shaping of the reality we live in. The engaged and responsible historical study of international legal doctrines should instead put close analysis of practice, sociological aspects of the profession, and the social and political stakes lawyers face at its center.

Prologue. The Education of James Brown Scott, 1866–1896

The book begins with a short prologue, outlining James Brown Scott’s early life and education. It first describes the religious and cultural upbringing provided by his family. Later, after brilliantly concluding high-school studies in Philadelphia, Scott attended Harvard College, fulfilling a wish of his late father. There he first encountered international law and the case method, thanks to his instructor Freeman Snow. Following doctoral studies in Germany, Scott returned to the United States in 1896, when he was thirty years old, Scott recited his first preserved public speech on international law in Los Angeles. The prologue ends with an analysis of the speech, which already contained many themes that Scott would rehearse for the rest of his career.

The Catholic Conception of International Law

The fifth chapter tracks Scott’s fascination with Catholicism and his attempts to persuade the Vatican to endorse the brand of international law he championed as conducive to global peace. The first section provides an account of why the Presbyterian Scott believed that the Holy See could play a crucial role in sustaining the moral foundations of global politics. It then moves on to detail Scott’s early approaches to the Curia, marred by the outbreak of the First World War. Section 2 describes how, in the postwar years, Scott was influenced by a Neo-Scholastic movement internal to US Catholicism, tracing modern democracy back to Thomist theology. Scott used these lessons to develop further his argument and enlarge the coalition, promoting Vitoria as the founder of international law. Section 3 tells of Scott’s last and best-prepared approach to the Holy See in favor of international law in the mid-1930s.

International Law as Faith. The Cuban Intervention and the Narrative of 1898

The second chapter illustrates the function of faith in James Brown Scott’s theory of international law through an account of his understanding of the role of the United States in American continental relations. Section 1 introduces James Brown Scott’s 1917 speech on the Platt Amendment. Taking the speech as a point of departure, it traces the connection between the rise of international law and US–Cuba relations at the turn of the century. Section 2 describes the rise of humanitarianism in the United States in the late nineteenth century and its religious inspiration. This development would provide the ideological foundations for the narrative of the selfless empire that supported the 1898 US intervention in Cuba. Section 3 begins with a textual analysis of Scott’s speech and connects it with the narrative of 1898. It continues by illustrating the ambivalent relationship of the narrative with concrete US policies toward Cuba and Latin America in the early twentieth century.