"Often considered a secularizing force in the rise of the nation state, natural law was called upon in the defence of the early-modern confessional states. The fourteen chapters of this volume show how religious and legal thought around natural and biblical law interacted and combined in the new Christian states of Lutheranism, Calvinism and Catholicism. The volume addresses also questions of political legitimacy, civic and ecclesiastical authority, societal stability, conceptions of common good, liberalism's value pluralism (and its pretence), toleration and the lingering humanist project of determining "who are we", issues that were then important as they are now. Contributors are: Dominique Bauer, Thomas Behme, Hans Blom, Jiří Chotaš, Alberto Clerici, Stefanie Ertz, Arthur Eyffinger, Heikki Haara, Mads Langballe Jensen, Adriana Luna-Fabritius, Denis Ramelet, József Simon, and Markus M. Totzeck"--

A fresh look at the importance of natural and international law in the religious politics at the heartlands of the Reformation, from the Low Countries, the German principalities up to Transylvania; from Niels Hemmingsen to Gian Battista Vico; from religious reasons for the universalist claims of natural law to political arguments for the sacred polity, their tension and creative potential.

The open access publication of this book was financially supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation. This volume sheds new light on modern theories of natural law through the lens of the fragmented political contexts of Italy in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and the dramatic changes of the times. From the age of reforms, through revolution and the ‘Risorgimento’, the unification movement which ended with the creation of the unified Kingdom of Italy in 1861, we see a move from natural law and the law of nations to international law, whose teaching was introduced in Italian universities of the newly created Kingdom. The essays collected here show that natural law was not only the subject of a highly codified academic teaching, but also provided a broader conceptual and philosophical frame underlying the ‘science of man’. Natural law is also a language wherein reform programmes of education and of politics have taken form, affecting a variety of discourses and literary genres. Contributors are: Alberto Clerici, Vittor Ivo Comparato, Giuseppina De Giudici, Frédéric Ieva, Girolamo Imbruglia, Francesca Iurlaro, Serena Luzzi, Elisabetta Fiocchi Malaspina, Emanuele Salerno, Gabriella Silvestrini, Antonio Trampus.

Emergence of the modern science of international law in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is usually attributed to Hugo Grotius (1583-1645) and other “founders of international law.” Based on the belief that “all seventeenth and eighteenth-century writers of international law had their own particular political context in mind when writing about the law of nations,” this book sheds light on some worldly aspect of the early writers of the law of nations (i.e., the former name for international law). Studied here are the writings of seven German court councilors, namely, Samuel Rachel (Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorp), Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (Hannover), Adam Friedrich Glafey (Saxony), Johann Adam Ickstatt (Würzburg-Bamberg), Samuel von Cocceji (Prussia), Johann Jacob Moser (Würtemberg and Hessen-Homburg) and Emer de Vattel (Saxony).

Examines early modern Spanish contributions to international relations by focusing on ambivalence of natural rights in European colonial expansion to the Americas.

Samuel Pufendorf (1632-1694) is regarded as one of the eminent thinkers of the early-modern era, critical in the shaping of the period's natural jurisprudence. In this interdisciplinary collection of essays, esteemed scholars examine Pufendorf's contributions to international political and legal thought.