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^{[Note 1]} is a legal treatise on international law by Emerich de Vattel, published in 1758.^[1]

The Law of Nations

Cover page
Author	Emerich de Vattel
Language	French
Subject	International Law
Publication date	1758
Publication place	Switzerland
Published in English	1760 (1st) 1787 (2nd) 1793 (3rd) 1797 (4th)

Influence

Centuries after his death it was found that United States President George Washington had a number of overdue library books at the time of his death. One of them was The Law of Nations.^[2][3]

Swiss editor Charles W.F. Dumas sent Benjamin Franklin three copies of the book in 1775. Franklin received them May 18, June 30, and July 8 by two couriers: Alexandre Pochard (Dumas' friend^[4] and later companion to Fleury Mesplet^[5]) and a man named Vaillant. Franklin kept one copy for himself, depositing the second in "our own public library here" (the Library Company of Philadelphia which Franklin founded in 1731) and sending the third to the "college of Massachusetts Bay" (Franklin used the original name from 1636, not acknowledging the 1639 rename to Harvard College in honor of John Harvard). In December 1775, Franklin thanked Dumas:^[6][7]

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".^[8][9]

It provides at least a partial legal basis for modern conscription in the United States.^[10] 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.

In the United States, Vattel was one of the treatise writers that influenced James Madison's concept of the freedom of the seas in defense of the principle "free ships make free goods" (in other words, if the ships were neutral, than the goods on board were deemed neutral).^[11] In the longest work Madison ever wrote, he relied heavily upon Vattel to support his argument that the Rule of 1756 had no legal basis.^[12]

According to James Madison, Vattel was "justly charged with failing too much in the merit of a careful discrimination; and sometimes with delivering maxims, which he either could not reconcile, or does not take pains to explain." Regarding the chapter on neutrality (Book III, Chapter VII of The Law of Nations), Madison says Vattel could have been "more exact in his definitions and more lucid in the order of his ideas".^[13]

Neutrality

The practice of mercantilist economies granting their own ships legal privileges when trading with their colonies, and sometimes restricting trade entirely, created a whole host of issues in the 18th century.^[11] Neutral trade or neutral rights became a matter of controversy in the Seven Years' War in which neutral rights were supported by the Kingdom of France and opposed by the Kingdom of Great Britain. Vattel formulated a differing approach to the Rule of 1756 that had emerged from the prize courts in Britain.^[14]

With the Rule of 1756 the British had sought to prevent trade by neutral vessels between colonies and mother countries. Practically speaking, this would have stopped American vessels from trading between the West Indies and France.^[15] Vattel neither fully embraced the British approach distinguishing trade with the enemy (neutral) and trade for the enemy (deemed contraband), nor did he fully subscribe to French the "free ships, free goods" principle. Rather, in the Law of Nations Vattel proposed only some limited restrictions on trade, requiring that states trade with both belligerents to keep their neutral status, but rejected any obligation for neutral states to cease trade. Additionally, neutral nations were encouraged to accept that certain types of goods might be justifiably seized by belligerents, and these seizures should not be construed as acts of war.^[14][16]

English editions

Vattel's Law of Nations was translated into English in 1760, based on the French original of 1758. A Dublin translation 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.^[17]

Notes

1. French: Le Droit des gens : Principes de la loi naturelle, appliqués à la conduite et aux affaires des Nations et des Souverains

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. Parker, Kathleen (21 April 2010). "Finally, a library for our first president". The Washington Post. the man who could not tell a lie failed to return a couple of volumes that were due on Nov. 2, 1789. That comes to more than 220 years late, or about $300,000 in fines. Borrowed from the New York Society Library, the books were Emmerich de Vattel's Law of Nations, dealing with international relations, and a collection of debates from Britain's House of Commons
3. "George Washington's 221-year overdue library book: A timeline". The Week. 21 May 2010. Oct. 5, 1789: Five months after George Washington takes the oath of office at Federal Hall on Wall Street, the new president checks out two books from the New York Society Library. The library was located in the same building as the president's office, in what was then the nation's capital. In a ledger, next to the names of the books – The Law of Nations by Emmerich de Vattel and Vol. 12 of the Commons Debates, containing transcripts from Britain's House of Commons – the librarian writes, 'President'.
4. Chiokoyhikoy; Donald; Grinde, Donald A.; Robert; Griffin, Robert (1997). Apocalypse de Chiokoyhikoy, Chef des Iroquois. Presses Université Laval. p. 196. ISBN 9782763774497. Alexandre Pochard, a friend of Dumas' and perhaps an abbe, was with Mesplet in Montreal
5. Pocharde, Alexandre (1776). "L'Imprimeur M. Mesplet, ses ouvriers et moi avons ressenti les coups de la vengeance des Suppôts du Roi" [The Printer M. Mesplet, his workers and I felt the blows of revenge from the King's Suppots] (in French). Letter to Benjamin Franklin.
6. 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.
7. "Benjamin Franklin to To: Charles William Frederic Dumas". Virginia.edu. 9 December 1775. Archived from the original on 5 September 2013. I received your several favours, of May 18, June 30, and July 8, by Messrs. Vaillant and Pochard; whom, if I could serve upon your recommendation, it would give me great pleasure. Their total want of English is at present an obstruction to their getting any employment among us; but I hope they will soon obtain some knowledge of it. This is a good country for artificers or farmers, but gentlemen, of mere science in les belles lettres, cannot so easily subsist here, there being little demand for their assistance among an industrious people, who, as yet, have not much leisure for studies of that kind. I am much obliged by the kind present you have made us of your edition of Vattel. It came to us in good season, when the circumstances of a rising state make it necessary frequently to consult the law of nations. Accordingly, that copy which I kept, (after depositing one in our own public library here, and sending the other to the college of Massachusetts Bay, as you directed)
8. "U.S. Steel Corp. v. Multistate Tax Comm'n,434 U.S. 452, 462". 1978. Archived from the original on 6 January 2007. The international jurist most widely cited in the first 50 years after the Revolution was Emmerich de Vattel. 1 J. Kent, Commentaries on American Law 18 (1826). In 1775, Benjamin Franklin acknowledged receipt of three copies of a new edition, in French, of Vattel's Law of Nations and remarked that the book "has been continually in the hands of the members of our Congress now sitting . . . ." 2 F. Wharton, United States Revolutionary Diplomatic Correspondence 64 (1889), cited in Weinfeld, supra, at 458.
9. A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation: U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates, 1774–1875. p. 185. Mr. Dumas, who had made international law his specialty, recalled himself very acceptably to Dr. Franklin in the autumn of 1775, by sending him copies of Vattel, edited and annotated by himself; a most timely gift, which was pounced upon by studious members of Congress, groping their way without the light of precedents.
10. Leach, Jack Franklin (1952). Conscription in the United States: Historical Background. Rutland, Vermont: C. E. Tuttle. p. vi. OCLC 1727243.
11. Urofsky, Melvin I. (November 23, 2004). The American Presidents: Critical Essays. Routledge. p. 112. ISBN 9781135581367.
12. Selected Writings of James Madison. Hackett. June 15, 2006. p. 278. ISBN 9781603840019.
13. Chetail, Vincent (2013). The Roots of International Law. Brill. p. 276. ISBN 9789004261655.
14. Stapelbroek, Koen (June 24, 2021). Concepts and Contexts of Vattel's Political and Legal Thought. Cambridge University Press. p. 112. ISBN 9781108489447.
15. Voelcker, Tim (2013). Broke of the Shannon and the War of 1812. Seaforth Publishing. p. 54.
16. Kulsrud, Carl Jacob (2000). Maritime Neutrality to 1780: A History of the Main Principles Governing Neutrality and Belligerency to 1780. The Lawbook Exchange. p. 76. ISBN 9781584770275.
17. Emer de Vattel (1844). The Law of Nations, Or the Principles of Law of Nature Applied 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.

External links

• The Law of Nations, kingdom-hawaii.org