Abstract
The aim of this chapter is to analyse the circulation of Emer de Vattel’s Droit des gens in the nineteenth century, the period in which it enjoyed its greatest success. The publishing history of the Droit des gens will be introduced by some preliminary methodological aspects—closely bound to the need to write a global legal history—in which translation, in the broader sense of the term, plays a key role. The first part of the chapter is devoted to a reconstruction of the historical development of nineteenth-century international law, with particular regard to the universalisation of (European) international law. The second part focuses, instead, on the various translations of the Droit des gens and its spread in Europe as well as in Latin America.
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Notes
- 1.
Emmanuelle Tourme-Jouannet, Anne Peters, “The Journal of the History of International Law: A Forum for New Research”, Journal of the History of International Law 16 (2014), 1–8: 1.
- 2.
Martti Koskenniemi, “Why History of International Law Today?” Rechtsgeschichte-Legal History. Zeitschrift des Max-Planck-Instituts für europäische Rechtsgeschichte 4 (2004), 61–66.
- 3.
Ibid., 65–66.
- 4.
Ibid., 66.
- 5.
Ingo Hueck, “The Discipline of the History of International Law—New Trends and Methods on the History of International Law”, Journal of the History of International Law 3 (2001), 194–217.
- 6.
George Rodrigo Bandeira Galindo, “Martti Koskenniemi and the Historiographical Turn in International Law”, European Journal of International Law 16 (2005), 539–559. See also Matthew Craven, “Theorizing the Turn to History in International Law”, The Oxford Handbook of the Theory of International Law, ed. Anne Orford and Florian Hoffmann (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 21–37.
- 7.
Anne Orford, “Scientific Reason and the Discipline of International Law”, European Journal of International Law 25 (2014), 369–385. See also Anne Orford, “On International Legal Method”, London Review of International Law 1 (2013), 166–197; Anne Orford, “The Past as Law or History? The Relevance of Imperialism for Modern International Law”, Droit international et nouvelles approches sur le tiers-monde: entre répétition et renouveau, ed. Mark Toufayan, Emmanuelle Tourme-Jouannet and Hélène Ruiz-Fabri (Paris: Société de législation comparée, 2013), 97–118.
- 8.
Ian Hunter, “Global Justice and Regional Metaphysics: On the Critical History of the Law of Nature and Nations”, Law and Politics in British Colonial Thought: Transpositions of Empire, ed. Dorsett Shaunnagh and Ian Hunter (New York: Palgrave, 2010), 11–29; Ian Hunter, “About the dialectical historiography of international law”, Global Intellectual History 1 (2016), 1–32.
- 9.
Martti Koskenniemi, “Histories of International Law: Significance Problems for a Critical View”, Temple International and Comparative Law Journal 26 (2013), 215–240: 238; Martti Koskenniemi, “Vitoria and Us: Thoughts on Critical Histories of International Law”, Rechtsgeschichte-Legal History. Zeitschrift des Max-Planck-Instituts für europäische Rechtsgeschichte 22 (2014), 119–138; and Martti Koskenniemi, “Expanding Histories of International Law”, American Journal of Legal History 56 (2016), 104–112. See also the recent article of Valentina Vani concerning methodology for writing the history of international law: Valentina Vani, “International Law and Its Histories: Methodological Risks and Opportunities”, Harvard International Law Journal 58 (2017), 311–352.
- 10.
Thomas Duve, “European Legal History-Global Perspectives. Working Paper for the Colloquium European Normativity—Global Historical Perspectives’ (Max Planck-Institute for European Legal History, September, 2nd–4th 2013)”, Max Planck for European Legal History Research Paper Series 6 (2013), 1–24: 18. http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2292666; Thomas Duve, “European Legal History—Concepts, Methods, Challenges”, Entanglements in Legal History: Conceptual Approaches, ed. Thomas Duve (Frankfurt am Main: Max Planck Institute for European Legal History, 2014), 29–66; and “Global Legal History—A Methodological Approach”, Max Planck for European Legal History Research Paper Series, 2016–2004, 1–23. http://ssrn.com/abstract=2781104; Thomas Duve, “Global Legal History: Setting Europe in Perspective”, The Oxford Handbook of European Legal History, ed. Heikki Pihlajamäki, Markus D. Dubber, and Mark Godfrey (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), 115–139.
- 11.
André Bandelier, Emer de Vattel à Jean Henry Samuel Formey . Correspondance autour du Droit des gens (Paris: Champion, 2012). See also Elisabetta Fiocchi Malaspina, L’eterno ritorno del Droit des gens di Emer de Vattel (secc. XVIII-XIX). L’impatto sulla cultura giuridica in prospettiva globale (Frankfurt am Main: Global Perspectives on Legal History, Max Planck Institute for European Legal History Open Access Publication, 2017). https://doi.org/10.12946/gplh8.
- 12.
The 250th anniversary of the publication of the Droit des gens was celebrated in 2008. Among the various volumes published for the occasion (or shortly afterwards), see Vattel’s International Law in a XXIst Century Perspective, Le droit international de Vattel vu du XXIe Siècle, ed. Vincent Chetail and Peter Haggenmacher (Leiden and Boston: Nijhoff, 2011); Christoph Good, Emer de Vattel (1714–1767), Naturrechtliche Ansätze einer Menschenrechtsidee und des humanitären Völkerrechts im Zeitalter der Aufklärung. Europäische Rechts- und Regionalgeschichte (Zurich: Dike, 2011); Tetsuya Toyoda, “Vattel’s Doctrine of National Sovereignty in the Context of Saxony Poland and Neuchâtel”, Theory and Politics on the Law of Nations: Political Bias in International Law Discourse of Seven German Court Conciliors in the Seventh and Eighteenth Centuries, ed. Tetsuya Toyoda (Leiden-Boston: Nijhoff, 2011), 161–190; and Réflexions sur l’impact, le rayonnement et l’actualité de Le droit des gens, ou Principes de la loi naturelle appliqués à la conduite et aux affaires des nations et des souverains d’Emer de Vattel. A l’occasion du 250 anniversaire de sa parution: actes du colloque organisé le 21 juin 2008 à Neuchâtel, ed. Yves Sandoz (Brussels: Bruylant, 2010).
- 13.
Jean-Pierre Chambrier d’Oleires, Essai sur le Droit des gens (Parma: Bodoni, 1795); “Question de Droit des Gens et Observations sur le Traité du Droit des Gens de M. de Vattel”, Mémoires de l’Académie Royale des Sciences et Belles Lettres, 1788–1789 (Berlin: Haude, 1793), 436–459; and “Question de Droit des Gens et Observations sur le Traité du Droit des Gens de M. de Vattel: suite”, Mémoires de l’Académie Royale des Sciences et Belles Lettres, 1790–1791 (Berlin: Haude, 1796), 419–430. Both essays can be found online, in Digitalisierte Akademieschriften und Schriften zur Geschichte der Königlich Preußischen Akademie der Wissenschaften (1700–1900). http://www.bbaw.de/bibliothek/digital/index.html. For an analysis of Chambrier, see Isaac Nakhimovsky, “Carl Schmitt’s and the “Law of Nations” Between Enlightenment and Revolution”, Grotiana 31 (2010), 141–164.
- 14.
Immanuel Kant, Zum ewigen Frieden, ein philosophischer Entwurf (Frankfurt, Leipzig: 1795), 33.
- 15.
Cornelis Van Vollenhoven, Les trois phases du Droit des gens (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1919), 93.
- 16.
Ibid., 27–28. See Emmanuelle Jouannet, Emer de Vattel et l’émergence doctrinale du droit international public (Paris: Pedone, 1998), 11.
- 17.
Hersch Lauterpacht, “Les travaux préparatoires et l’interprétation des traités”, Recueil des cours de l’Académie de droit international de la Haye 48 (1934), 709–817: 713. See also Vincent Chetail, “Vattel et la sémantique du droit des gens: une tentative de reconstruction critique”, Vattel’s International law in a XXIst Century Perspective, Le droit international de Vattel vu du XXIe Siècle, 412.
- 18.
Luigi Nuzzo, Origini di una Scienza. Diritto internazionale e colonialismo nel XIX secolo (Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann, 2012), 4.
- 19.
Claudia Storti, “Empirismo scienza: il crocevia del diritto internazionale nella prima metà dell’Ottocento”, Constructing International Law: The Birth of a Discipline, ed. Luigi Nuzzo and Miloš Vec (Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann, 2012), 51–145, 53. See also Miloš Vec, “From the Congress of Vienna to the Paris Peace Treaties of 1919”, The Oxford Handbook of International Law, ed. Bardo Fassbender and Anne Peters (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 654–678. On relations between the Ottoman Empire and Europe, see Eliana Augusti, Questioni d’Oriente: Europa e Impero Ottomano nel diritto internazionale dell’Ottocento (Naples: Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane, 2013).
- 20.
Luigi Nuzzo, Miloš Vec, “The Birth of International Law as a Legal Discipline in the 19th Century”, Constructing International Law, IX–XVI: XII.
- 21.
Nuzzo, Origini di una scienza, 133; “Un mondo senza nemici. La costruzione del diritto internazionale e il controllo delle differenze”, I diritti dei nemici, ed. Pietro Costa, Quaderni fiorentini per la storia del pensiero giuridico 38 (2009), 1311–1382.
- 22.
Arthur Nussbaum, A Concise History of the Law of Nations (New York: Macmillan, 1954), 197; Eliana Augusti, “Peace by Code: Draft Solution for a Codification of International Law”, Paradoxes of Peace in 19th Century Europe, ed. Thomas Hippler and Miloš Vec (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 37–61.
- 23.
Randall Lesaffer, “Peace Treaties and the Formation of International Law”, The Oxford Handbook of International Law, 71–94: 84.
- 24.
Laura Passero, “Dalle Convenzioni di Ginevra alla ‘bancarotta’ del diritto internazionale. Il rapporto tra il ‘nuovo’ jus in bello otto-novecentesco e la catastrofe della prima guerra civile europea”, I diritti dei nemici 1484–1485; Stefano Pietropaoli, “Jus ad bellum e ius in bello. La vicenda teorica di una ‘grande dicotomia’ del diritto internazionale”, I diritti dei nemici, 1184–1185.
- 25.
Kristina Lovric-Pernak, Morale internationale und humanité im Völkerrecht des späten 19. Jahrunderts. Bedeutung und Funktion in Staatpraxis und Wissenschft (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2013); Mary Ellen O’Connell, “Historical Development and Legal Basis”, The Handbook of International Humanitarian Law, ed. Dieter Fleck (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 101–151, in particular 105–125; Carlo Focarelli, La persona umana nel diritto internazionale (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2013); “Il diritto internazionale umanitario e la Croce Rossa dal 1859 al 1914”, Storia della Croce Rossa Italiana dalla nascita al 1914. I. Saggi, ed. Costantino Cipolla and Paolo Vanni (Milan: FrancoAngeli, 2013); and Lezioni di storia del diritto internazionale (Perugia: Morlacchi, 2002).
- 26.
Thomas Hippler, Miloš Vec, “Peace as a Polemic Concept: Writing the History Peace in Nineteenth Century Europe”, Paradoxes of Peace, 3–18.
- 27.
Gustavo Gozzi, Diritti e civiltà. Storia e filosofia del diritto internazionale (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2010), 157. See, in relation to international law in Asian countries: Stefan Kroll, Normgenese durch Re-Interpretation- China und das europäische Völkerrecht im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2012); East Asian and European Perspective on International Law, ed. Michael Stolleis and Masaharu Yanagihara (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2004).
- 28.
Arthur O. Lovejoy, “Reflections on the History of Ideas”, Journal of the History of Ideas 1 (1940), 3–23: 4.
- 29.
Christopher Hill, “Conceptual Universalization in the Transnational Nineteenth Century”, Global Intellectual History, ed. Samuel Moyn and Andrew Sartori (New York: Columbia University Press, 2013), 134–158: 135. See also Arnulf Becker Lorca, “Universal International Law: Nineteenth-Century. Histories of Imposition and Appropriation”, Harvard International Law Journal 51 (2010), 475–552: 476.
- 30.
Ibid., 484, note 15. See also Arnulf Becker Lorca, Mestizo International Law: A Global Intellectual History 1842–1933 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015).
- 31.
Peter Macalister-Smith, Joachim Schwietzke, “Bibliography of the Textbooks and Comprehensive Treatises on Positive International Law of the 19th century”, Journal of the History of International Law, 3 (2001), 75–142: 78.
- 32.
For the circulation of the Droit des gens in Asia, see among others: He Weifang, “Vattel’s China”, Réflexions sur l’impact, le rayonnement et l’actualité du ‘Droit des gens’ d’Emer de Vattel, 75–78; Rune Svarverud, “The Notions of ‘Power’ and ‘Rights’ in Chinese Political Discourse”, New Terms for New Ideas: Western Knowledge and Lexical Change in Late Imperial China , ed. Michael Lackner and Joachim Kurtz (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 125–146: 128; and Tetsuya Toyoda, “Le fondement universel du Droit des gens Vattelien et l’entrée du Japon dans l’ordre juridique international”, Réflexions sur l’impact, le rayonnement et l’actualité du ‘Droit des gens’ d’Emer de Vattel, 59–73. Regarding the circulation of Wheaton’s work, see David Armitage, Foundations of Modern International Thought (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013), in particular 28 ff.; Lydia L. Liu, “Legislating the Universal: The Circulation of International Law in the Nineteenth Century”, Tokens of Exchange: The Problem of Translation in Global Circulation (Durham: Duke University Press, 2000), 127–164; and Lydia L. Liu, 2004, The Clash of Empires: The invention of China in Modern World Making (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2004).
- 33.
Liu, “Legislating the Universal: The Circulation of International Law in the Nineteenth Century”, 128.
- 34.
Henri Legohérel, Histoire du droit international public (Paris: PUF, 1996), 75.
- 35.
“Pinheiro-Ferreira Silvestre”, Enciclopedia universal ilustrada europeo americana (Madrid: Espasa-Calpesa, 1991), XXIII, 913–914.
- 36.
Silvestre Pinheiro Ferreira, “Avertissement”, Emer de Vattel, Le Droit des gens, revue et corrigée avec quelques remarques de l’éditeur, augmentée de quelques remarques nouvelles, et d’une bibliographie choisie et systématique du droit de la nature et des gens, par M. de Hoffmann, notes et table général par Pinheiro Ferreira (Paris: Libraire du Guillaumin, 1838), v.
- 37.
Ibid.
- 38.
Ibid., vi. Pinheiro argued that the commentary to Vattel’s text was more necessary than ever: “nous semblait d’autant plus nécessaire que le droit des gens positif, tel qu’il est au moment même où écrivons, ne saurait être avoué dans toutes ses dispositions par aucun publiciste sincèrement constitutionnel”.
- 39.
Ibid., 33, 60, 84–85, 110, 125, 201, 214, 237, 253, 261, 310, 332, 434, 478, 484, 501–502, 526, 553, 544, 565. See Vincent Chetail, “Vattel et la sémantique du droit des gens: une tentative de reconstruction critique”, Vattel’s International law in a XXIst Century Perspective, Le droit international de Vattel vu du XXIe Siècle, 424.
- 40.
Pinheiro Ferreira, Avertissement, 99.
- 41.
Johann Ludwig Klüber, Droit des gens moderne de l’Europe (Stuttgard: Cotta, 1863), I–II, 1819.
- 42.
Georg Friedrich de Martens, Précis du Droit des gens modernes de l’Europe fondé sur les traités et l’usage (Göttingen, 1788).
- 43.
Charles de Martens, Le guide diplomatique, précis des droits et des fonctions des agents diplomatiques et consulaires, suivi d’un traité des actes et offices divers qui sont du ressort de la diplomatie, accompagné de pièces et documents proposés comme exemples, et d’une bibliothèque diplomatique choisie (Paris-Leipzig: Guillaumin, 1837) I–III.
- 44.
Albert Lapradelle, “Introduction”, Emer de Vattel, Le droit des gens ou Principes de la loi naturelle appliqués à la conduite et aux affaires des Nations et des Souverains (Washington: Carnegie Endowment of International Peace, 1917), i–lv: xli.
- 45.
Hugo Grotius, Le droit de la guerre et de la paix, divisé en trois livres ou sont expliqués le droit de la nature et des gens et les principaux points du droit public. Nouvelle traduction, précédé d’un Essai biographique et historique sur Grotius et son temps, accompagnée d’un choix de notes de Gronovius, Barbeyrac, etc. completée par des notes nouvelles mise au courant des progrès du Droit publique moderne, et suivie d’une table analytique des matières par M.P. Pradier-Fodéré (Paris: Guillaumin, 1867).
- 46.
James E.G. Montmorency, “Emerich de Vattel”, Journal of the Society of Comparative Legislation, 10 (1909), 17 note 1, 19, 20 note 1.
- 47.
Eduard Duncan Ingraham, Preface, in Emer de Vattel, The Law of Nations (Philadelphia: Johnson, 1852), iii.
- 48.
Lapradelle, Introduction, lix. In the United States for the entire nineteenth century, as had occurred in the eighteenth, Vattel was considered the greatest authority on international law, see Thomas Willig Balch, “The United States and the Expansion of the Law Between Nations”, University of Pennsylvania Law Review and American Register 64 (1915), 113–117; George A. Finch, “Les sources modernes du droit international”, Recueil des Cours de l’Académie de Droit international de La Haye 53 (1935), 535–627. Regarding the use of the Droit des gens in practice and in jurisprudence, see Tim Alan Garrison, The Legal Ideology of Removal; The Southern Judiciary and the Sovereignty of Native American Nations (Georgia: Athens, 2009), 71 ff.; William S. Dodge, “Customary, International Law, Congress and the Courts: Origins of the Later in Time Rule”, Making Transnational Law Work in the Global Economy: Essays in Honour of D. Vagts, ed. P.H.F. Bekker, R. Dolzer and M. Waibel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 544 ff.; David Sloss, Michael D. Ramsey and William S. Dodge, The U.S. Supreme Court and International Law: Continuity of Change (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 16 ff.
- 49.
More generally, Ulrich Mücke, Gegen Aufklärung und Revolution. Die Enstehung konservativen Denkens in der iberischen Welt (1770–1840) (Cologne, Weimar and Vienna: Böhlau, 2008), 134 ff.; Eric Van Young, “‘To Throw off a Tyrannical Governement’: Atlantic Revolutionay Traditions, and Popular Insurgency in Mexico, 1800–1821”, Revolutionary Current: Nation Building in the Transatlantic Word, ed. Michael A. Morrison and Melinda Zook (Lantham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers), 2004, 127–172; Jaime E. Rodríguez, The Independence of Spanish America (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998); John Lynch, Latin America Revolutions 1808–1826, Old and New World Origins (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1994).
- 50.
José Carlos Chiaramonte, Nación y estado en Iberoamérica. Los lenguajes politicos en tiempos de las independencias (Buenos Aires: Sudamericana, 2004), 34; “Fundamentos intelectuales y políticos de las independencias. Notas para una nueva historia intelectual de Iberoamérica”, Teseo 1 (2010), 15–31; Alejandro E. Parada, El mundo del libro y de la lectura durante la época Rivadavia. Una aproximación a través de los avisos de La Gaceta Mercantil (1823–1828) (Buenos Aires: Universidad de Buenos Aires, 1998), 131–136; Maria Medianeira Padoin, O Federalismo no Espaço Fronteriço Platino. A Revoluçao Farraoupilha (1835–1845) (Porto Alegre: Companhia Editora Nacional, 2000); and Federalismo gaucho. Fronteira, Direito e Revoluçao (Sao Paolo, Universidad Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, 2001). For a more general view of international law in South America, see also Alejandro Alvarez, Le droit international américan son fondement-sa nature d’après l’Histoire diplomatique des Etats du Nouveau Monde et leur Vie Politique et Economique (Paris: Pedone, 1910). Regarding the international lawyers see H.B. Jacobini, A Study of the Philosophy on International Law as Seen in Works of Latin American Writers (The Hague, Martinus Nijhoff, 1954); Jesus G. Bohorquez, Huestes de estado: la formacion universitaria de los juristas en los juristas en los comienzos del estado colombiano (Bogotà: Universidad del Rosario, 2002), 90 in particular note 61.
- 51.
Andrés Bello, Principios de Derecho de Jentes. Obra publicada en Santiago de Chile en 1832 (Caracas: Reimpressos por Valentin Espinal, 1837), 9. See also Elisabetta Fiocchi Malaspina, Nina Keller-Kemmerer, “International Law and Translation in the 19th Century”, Rechtsgeschichte-Legal History. Zeitschrift des Max-Planck-Instituts für europäische Rechtsgeschichte 22 (2014), 214–227. On Bello see also Nina Keller-Kemmerer, Die Mimikry des Völkerrechts: Andrés Bellos “Principios de Derecho Internacional” (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2018).
- 52.
Liliana Obregon, “Construyendo la región americana: Andrés Bello y el derecho internacional”, La idea en el pensamiento ius internacionlista del siglo XXI: Estudios a propósito de la commemoración de los bicentenarios de las independencias de las repúblicas latinoamericanas, ed. Yolanda Gamorra Chopo (Zaragoza: Institución Fernando El Católico, 2010), 65–86: 70; see also Liliana Obregon, “Construyendo la región americana: Andrés Bello y el Derecho Internacional”, Andrés Bello y los Estudios Latinoamericanos. Serie Críticas, ed. Stephana Beatriz González and Juan Poblete (Pittsburgh: Instituto Internacional de Literatura Iberoamericana, 2009), 189–218.
- 53.
Homi Bhabha, The Location of Culture (London and New York: Routledge, 1994), 38.
- 54.
Martti Koskenniemi, “Dealing with Eurocentrism”, Rechtsgeschichte-Legal History. Zeitschrift des Max-Planck-Instituts für europäische Rechtsgeschichte 19 (2011), 152–176: 173.
- 55.
Diego Saglia, Georges L. Bastin, Alvaro Echeverri and A. Campo, “Translation and the Emancipation of Latin America”, Translation, Resistance, Activism, ed. Maria Tymoczko (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2010), 42–64, 62–63.
- 56.
Antonio Trampus, “La traduzione toscana del Droit des gens di Emer de Vattel (circa 1780): contesti politici, transferts culturali e scelte traduttive”, Traduzione e Transfert nel XVIII secolo tra Francia, Italia e Germania, ed. Giulia Cantarutti and Stefano Ferrari (Milan: FrancoAngeli, 2013), 153–174: 153.
- 57.
Ibid., 153–154.
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Fiocchi Malaspina, E. (2019). The Legacy of Vattel’s Droit des gens in the Long Nineteenth Century. In: Stapelbroek, K., Trampus, A. (eds) The Legacy of Vattel's Droit des gens. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-23838-4_11
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