Men, Monsters and the History of Mankind in Vattel’s Law of Nations

Emer de Vattel has been widely considered a seminal figure in the European tradition of the law of nations. While attaching himself to the earlier tradition of natural jurisprudence, he offered a normative system of the law of nations that was more firmly and explicitly anchored to the political practice of his contemporary Europe than were the doctrines of his predecessors. Vattel promoted the practical applicability of his Droit des gens (1758), stressing that it was not so much written for interested ‘private individuals’, i.e. other scholars or the general public, but it was a ‘law of sovereigns’ that was primarily intended for ‘them and their ministers’. It would not help much, he explained, if his maxims were studied only by those who had no influence over public affairs; the ‘conductors of states’, on the other hand, if they chose to learn this science and adopt its maxims as the ‘compass’ for their policies, could produce many ‘happy results’.1 Vattel emphasized the easy comprehension and applicability of his book, contrasting his approach with that of Christian Wolff, whose treatise on the law of nations could be understood only if one ‘previously studied sixteen or seventeen quarto volumes which precede it’.2 As Vattel famously declared, his original intention was to introduce Wolff ’s system to a wider readership, by rendering his rigid and formal work more ‘agreeable and better calculated to ensure it a reception in the polite world’.3 While it is clear that Vattel’s work amounted to much more than a systematic account of Wolff ’s principles,4 it is in the manner of presentation that the differences between the two scholars are the most striking. Already the choice of French over Latin, the language of diplomats over that of the republic of