The Roman Foundations of the Law of Nations Alberico Gentili and the Justice of Empire

by Kingsbury, Benedict; Straumann, Benjamin

• ISBN13: 9780199599875
• ISBN10: 0199599874
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2011-02-04
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

The Roman Foundations of the Law of Nations makes the important but surprisingly under-explored argument that modern international law was built on the foundations of Roman law and Roman imperial practice. A pivotal figure in this enterprise was the Italian Protestant Alberico Gentili (1552-1608), the great Oxford Roman law scholar and advocate, whose books and legal opinions on law, war, empire, embassies and maritime issues framed the emerging structure of inter-state relations in terms of legal rights and remedies drawn from Roman law and built on Roman and scholastic theories of just war and imperial justice. The distinguished group of contributors examine the theory and practice of justice and law in Roman imperial wars and administration; Gentili's use of Roman materials; the influence on Gentili of Vitoria and Bodin and his impact on Grotius and Hobbes; and the ideas and influence of Gentili and other major thinkers from the 16th to the 18th centuries on issues such as preventive self-defence, punishment, piracy, Europe's political and mercantile relations with the Ottoman Empire, commerce and trade, European and colonial wars and peace settlements, reason of state, justice, and the relations between natural law and observed practice in providing a normative and operational basis for international relations and what became international law. This book explores how both the theory and the practice of international politics was framed in ways that built on these Roman private law and public law foundations, including concepts of rights. This history of ideas has continuing importance as European ideas of international law and empire have become global, partly accepted and partly contested elsewhere in the world.

Author Biography

Benedict Kingsbury is Murry and Ida Becker Professor of Law and Director of the Institute for International Law and Justice at New York University School of Law. He also directs NYU Law School's Program in the History and Theory of International Law, with Martti Koskenniemi. He is the editor, with Benjamin Straumann, of Alberico Gentili, The Wars of the Romans. De armis Romanis, trans. David Lupher (OUP, 2010), and, with Hedley Bull, Adam Roberts et al, of Hugo Grotius and International Relations (OUP, 1990).

Benjamin Straumann is Alberico Gentili Fellow at New York University. He is the author of Hugo Grotius und die Antike. Romisches Recht und romische Ethik im fruhneuzeitlichen Naturrecht (2007), and the editor, with Benedict Kingsbury, of Alberico Gentili, The Wars of the Romans. De armis Romanis, trans. David Lupher (2010).

Table of Contents

Note on contributors	p. vii
Note on references to Gentili's main works	p. xi
Editors' note and acknowledgments	p. xiii
Introduction: The Roman Foundations of the Law of Nations	p. 1
A Just Empire: The Roman Model
The Meaning of imperium in the Last Century BC and the First AD	p. 21
Empire and the Laws of War: A Roman Archaeology	p. 30
Alberico Gentili's De armis Romanis: The Roman Model of the Just Empire	p. 53
The De armis Romanis and the Exemplum of Roman Imperialism	p. 85
The Corpus iuris as a Source of Law Between Sovereigns in Alberico Gentili's Thought	p. 101
Gentili and the Law of War
Alberico Gentili and the Ottomans	p. 127
Gentili, the Poets, and the Laws of War	p. 146
Vitoria, Gentili, Bodin: Sovereignty and the Law of Nations	p. 163
Alberico Gentili's Doctrine of Defensive War and its Impact on Seventeenth-Century Normative Views	p. 187
Alberico Gentili's ius post bellum and Early Modern Peace Treaties	p. 210
Punishment and the ius post bellum	p. 241
Law Between, Beyond, and Within Sovereigns
Legalities of the Sea in Gentili's Hispanica Advocatio	p. 269
Ius gentium: A Defence of Gentili's Equation of the Law of Nations and the Law of Nature	p. 283
International Law and raison d'état: Rethinking the Prehistory of International Law	p. 297
Gentili, Vitoria, and the Fabrication of a 'Natural Law of Nations'	p. 340
Index of Names	p. 363
General Index	p. 367
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