No other scholar has so deeply influenced the development of international law or shaped the doctrinal debates as Vattel. More than 250 years after its publication, his Law of Nations has remained the most frequently quoted treatise of international law. This volume explores the reasons behind the extraordinary authority of Vattel and analyses its continuing relevance for thinking and understanding contemporary international law.

No other scholar has so deeply influenced the development of international law or shaped the doctrinal debates as Vattel. More than 250 years after its publication, his Law of Nations has remained the most frequently quoted treatise of international law. Vattel's International Law from a XXIst Century Perspective explores the reasons behind the extraordinary authority of Vattel and analyses its continuing relevance for thinking and understanding contemporary international law. It gathers the contributions from well-known experts of international law and history for the purpose of evaluating the Law of Nations from a XXIst century perspective. The multiple facets of Vattel’s thinking are apprehended through a wide-ranging and comprehensive analysis respectively devoted to the international system, the sources of international law, the subjects of international law, the law of peace, and the law of war.

Theory of International Law at the Threshold of the 21st Century is a remarkable book, and is destined to become a standard work, without which no International Law library will be complete. The essays contained in this volume are written by the foremost experts, and the topics have been chosen with the greatest care, to reflect the most pressing current problems facing the world community. The research and writing made available in this collection will be of enduring worth, and will be studied and quoted for decades to come. It follows in the finest traditions of the major collective works published by Martinus Nijhoff/Kluwer Law International. It is most appropriate that a remarkable book should be dedicated to a remarkable man, and the editor of the volume Professor Jerzy Makarczyk has ensured that the choice of writers, the choice of topics and the quality of the material do indeed honour one of the leading international lawyers of his generation: Professor Krzysztof Skubiszewski.

For many centuries, thinkers have tried to understand and to conceptualize political and legal order beyond the boundaries of sovereign territories. Their concepts, deeply entangled with ideas of theology, state formation, and human nature, form the bedrock of today's theoretical discourses on international law. This volume engages with models of early international legal thought from Machiavelli to Hegel before international law in the modern sense became an academic discipline of its own. The interplay of system and order serves as a leitmotiv throughout the book, helping to link historical models to contemporary discourse. Part I of the book covers a diverse collection of thinkers in order to scrutinize and contextualize their respective models of the international realm in light of general legal and political philosophy. Part II maps the historical development of international legal thought more generally by distilling common themes and ideas, such as the relationship between universality and particularity, the role of the state, the influence of power and economic interests on the law, and the contingencies of time, space and technical opportunities. In the current political climate, where it appears that the reinvigorated concept of the nation state as an ordering force competes with internationalist thinking, the problems at issue in the classic theories point to contemporary questions: is an international system without central power possible? How can a normative order come about if there is no central force to order relations between states? These essays show that uncovering the history of international law can offer ways in which to envisage its future.

International Law in the Long Nineteenth Century gathers ten studies that reflect the ever-growing variety of themes and approaches that scholars from different disciplines bring to the historiography of international law in the period.

Explores how Vattel used the natural law tradition to frame a pragmatic and treaty-oriented model of the law of nations.