Lesaffer, Randall --- "The Classical Law of Nations (1500–1800)" [2011] ELECD 583; in Orakhelashvili, Alexander (ed), "Research Handbook on the Theory and History of International Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2011)

Book Title: Research Handbook on the Theory and History of International Law

Editor(s): Orakhelashvili, Alexander

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781848443549

Section: Chapter 14

Section Title: The Classical Law of Nations (1500–1800)

Author(s): Lesaffer, Randall

Number of pages: 33

Extract:

14 The classical law of nations (1500­1800)
Randall Lesaffer


14.1 FROM RESPUBLICA CHRISTIANA TO JUS PUBLICUM
EUROPAEUM1

14.1.1 The Collapse of the Respublica Christiana

Since the 19th century, international lawyers and historians of international law generally
have defended the view that modern international law roots back to the sovereign States
system of Early-Modern Europe (1500­1800). The first publication by the Dutch human-
ist Hugo Grotius (1583­1645) of his seminal work De jure belli ac pacis libri tres (1625)2
and the Peace Treaties of Westphalia (1648),3 ending the Thirty Years War (1618­1648),


1
For surveys of the law of nations in Early-Modern Europe: Dominique Gaurier, Histoire
du droit international. Auteurs, doctrines et développement de l'Antiquité à l'aube de la période
contemporaine (Rennes, 2005) pp. 143­479; Wilhelm G. Grewe, The Epochs of International Law
(Berlin etc., 2000) pp. 137­424; Slim Laghmani, Histoire du droit des gens du jus gentium impérial
au jus publicum europaeum (Paris, 2003) pp. 61­223; Arthur Nussbaum, A Concise History of
the Law of Nations (New York, 1947); A. Pillet (ed.), Les fondateurs du Droit International (Paris,
1904); Wolfgang Preiser, `History of the Law of Nations: Ancient Times to 1648', in Rudolph
Bernhardt (ed.), Encyclopaedia of Public International Law (Amsterdam, 1995) vol. 2, pp. 722­49;
Ernest Reibstein, Völkerrecht. Eine Geschichte seiner Ideen in Lehre und Praxis (Freiburg and
Munich, 1957) vol. 1; Heinhard Steiger, `Ius bändigt Mars. Das ...