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The Authority of Vattel

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2013

Charles G. Fenwick
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Extract

There is no more significant commentary on the growth of international law, both in precision and in comprehensiveness, than an estimate of the relative authority of the name of Vattel in the world of international relations a century ago and in that of today. A century ago not even the name of Grotius himself was more potent in its influence upon questions relating to international law than that of Vattel. Vattel's treatise on the law of nations was quoted by judicial tribunals, in speeches before legislative assemblies, and in the decrees and correspondence of executive officials. It was the manual of the student, the reference work of the statesman, and the text from which the political philosopher drew inspiration. Publicists considered it sufficient to cite the authority of Vattel to justify and give conclusiveness and force to statements as to the proper conduct of a state in its international relations.

At the present day the name and treatise of Vattel have both passed into the remoter field of the history of international law. It is safe to say that in no modern controversy over the existence and force of an alleged rule of international law would publicists seek to strengthen the position taken by them by quoting the authority of Vattel. As an exposition of the law of nations at a given period of its growth, the work can, it is true, lose nothing of its value, but in saying that it has thus won its place irrevocably among the classics of international law, we are merely repeating that it has lost its value as a treatise on the law of the present day.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 7 , Issue 3 , August 1913 , pp. 395 - 410
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1913

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References

1 It is true that the authority of Vattel was frequently quoted during the arbitration at The Hague of the Newfoundland fisheries question in the summer of 1910; but in that case the question turned upon the interpretation of treaties entered into nearly a century before, so that the authority of Vattel was, in fact, cited as evidencing the state of international law at the period of the treaties, and the probable intent of the parties. Moreover, the writer must confess that only yesterday, at the sessions of the arbitral tribunal constituted by Great Britain and the United States to pass upon general outstanding claims between the two countries, the authority of Vattel was referred to in determining the law with regard to the responsbility of belligerent nations for the destruction of the property of neutral citizens located within the area of belligerent operations.

2 Le Droit Des Gens, Préliminaires, §4.

3 Ibid., loc. cit.

4 Ibid., §10.

5 Ibid., bk. i, chap, ii, §16.

6 Ibid., bk. i, chap, ii, §33.

7 Ibid., §34.

8 Ibid., iv, §51.

9 Ibid., loc. cit.

10 Ibid., xii, §128.

11 Ibid., ii, §24.

12 Ibid., ii, §39.

13 Ibid., Préliminaires, §5.

14 Ibid., Preface, vi.

15 Ibid., Préliminaires, §7.

16 Ibid., §13, 14, 15, 16.

17 Ibid., §17, 21.

18 It may be observed that the term “voluntary” is not used by Vattel in the same sense in which it was used by Grotius. The jus voluntarium of Grotius received its obligatory force “from the will of all or of many nations;” it consisted in the actual customs in force between nations and the principles generally recognized by them as belonging to the natural law; it was, therefore, a law to be ascertained synthetically from the facts of international life.

19 Ibid., §24, 25, 26.

20 Ibid., §27.

21 In order to make somewhat clearer the various species of the law of nations which constitute Vattel's system, the following table has been prepared, showing the relation between them and the source from which they have been derived.

22 1 C. Rob., 189.

23 1 C. Rob., 340.

24 2 Dall, 1.

25 Brown vs. the United States, 8 Cranch, 110.

26 United States vs. The Active, 24 Fed. Cases, 755.

27 Handly's Lessee vs. Anthony, 5 Wheat. 374.

28 Keith vs. Clark, 97 United States, 454.

29 The Alleganean, Court of Commissioners of Alabama Claims, 1885; iv, Moore, Int. Arbitrations, 4333.

30 Annals of Congress, 3d Congress, 754.

31 Annals of Congress, 4th Congress, 2nd session, 2230, 2231, 2234.

32 Hansard's, Parliamentary Debates, xl, 1094.Google Scholar

33 Ibid., 1235.

34 Ibid., 1246.

35 American State Papers, i, 154–155.

36 A second article presenting a critical estimate of the actual rules of international law formulated by Vattel will appear in a later issue of the Journal.

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