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• Introduction
• A Note On the Texts
• English Editions of the Law of Nations
• Three Essays By Vattel
• Acknowledgments
• The Law of Nations
• Advertisement
• Preface
• Preliminaries Idea and General Principles of the Law of Nations.
• Book I: Of Nations Considered In Themselves
• Chapter I: Of Nations Or Sovereign States.
• Chapter II: General Principles of the Duties of a Nation Towards Itself.
• Chapter III: Of the Constitution of a State, and the Duties and Rights of the Nation In This Respect.
• Chapter IV: Of the Sovereign, His Obligations, and His Rights.
• Chapter V: Of States Elective, Successive Or Hereditary, and of Those Called Patrimonial.
• Chapter VI: Principal Objects of a Good Government; and First to Provide For the Necessities of the Nation.
• Chapter VII: Of the Cultivation of the Soil.
• Chapter VIII: Of Commerce.
• Chapter IX: Of the Care of the Public Ways of Communication, and the Right of Toll.
• Chapter X: Of Money and Exchange.
• Chapter XI: Second Object of a Good Government,—to Procure the True Happiness of the Nation.
• Chapter XII: Of Piety and Religion.
• Chapter XIII: Of Justice and Polity.
• Chapter XIV: The Third Object of a Good Government,—to Fortify Itself Against External Attacks.
• Chapter XV: Of the Glory of a Nation.
• Chapter XVI: Of the Protection Sought By a Nation, and Its Voluntary Submission to a Foreign Power.
• Chapter XVII: How a Nation May Separate Itself From the State of Which It Is a Member, Or Renounce Its Allegiance to Its Sovereign When It Is Not Protected.
• Chapter XVIII: Of the Establishment of a Nation In a Country.
• Chapter XIX: Of Our Native Country, and Several Things That Relate to It.
• Chapter XX: Of Public, Common, and Private Property.
• Chapter XXI: Of the Alienation of the Public Property, Or the Domain, and That of a Part of the State.
• Chapter XXII: Of Rivers, Streams, and Lakes.
• Chapter XXIII: Of the Sea.
• Book II: Of a Nation Considered In Its Relations to Others
• Chapter I: Of the Common Duties of a Nation Towards Others, Or of the Offices of Humanity Between Nations.
• Chapter II: Of the Mutual Commerce Between Nations.
• Chapter III: Of the Dignity and Equality of Nations,—of Titles,—and Other Marks of Honour.
• Chapter IV: Of the Right to Security, and the Effects of the Sovereignty and Independence of Nations.
• Chapter V: Of the Observance of Justice Between Nations.
• Chapter VI: Of the Concern a Nation May Have In the Actions of Her Citizens.
• Chapter VII: Effects of the Domain, Between Nations.
• Chapter VIII: Rules With Respect to Foreigners.
• Chapter IX: Of the Rights Retained By All Nations After the Introduction of Domain and Property.
• Chapter X: How a Nation Is to Use Her Right of Domain, In Order to Discharge Her Duties Towards Other Nations, With Respect to the Innocent Use of Things.
• Chapter XI: Of Usucaption and Prescription Among Nations.
• Chapter XII: Of Treaties of Alliance, and Other Public Treaties.
• Chapter XIII: Of the Dissolution and Renewal of Treaties.
• Chapter XIV: Of Other Public Conventions,—of Those That Are Made By Subordinate Powers,—particularly of the Agreement Called In Latin Sponsio,—and of Conventions of Sovereigns With Private Persons.
• Chapter XV: Of the Faith of Treaties.
• Chapter XVI: Of Securities Given For the Observance of Treaties.
• Chapter XVII: Of the Interpretation of Treaties.
• Chapter XVIII: Of the Mode of Terminating Disputes Between Nations.
• Book III: Of War
• Chapter I: Of War,—its Different Kinds,— and the Right of Making War.
• Chapter II: Of the Instruments of War,—the Raising of Troops, &c.—their Commanders, Or the Subordinate Powers In War.
• Chapter III: Of the Just Causes of War.
• Chapter IV: Of the Declaration of War,— and of War In Due Form.
• Chapter V: Of the Enemy, and of Things Belonging to the Enemy.
• Chapter VI: Of the Enemy’s Allies—of Warlike Associations— of Auxiliaries and Subsidies.
• Chapter VII: Of Neutrality—and the Passage of Troops Through a Neutral Country.
• Chapter VIII: Of the Rights of Nations In War,—and First, of What We Have a Right to Do, and What We Are Allowed to Do, to the Enemy’s Person In a Just War.
• Chapter IX: Of the Right of War, With Regard to Things Belonging to the Enemy.
• Chapter X: Of Faith Between Enemies,—of Stratagems, Artifices In War, Spies, and Some Other Practices.
• Chapter XI: Of the Sovereign Who Wages an Unjust War.
• Chapter XII: Of the Voluntary Law of Nations, As It Regards the Effects of Regular Warfare, Independently of the Justice of the Cause.
• Chapter XIII: Of Acquisitions By War, and Particularly of Conquests.
• Chapter XIV: Of the Right of Postliminium.
• Chapter XV: Of the Right of Private Persons In War.
• Chapter XVI: Of Various Conventions Made During the Course of the War.
• Chapter XVII: Of Safe-conducts and Passports,—with Questions On the Ransom of Prisoners of War.
• Chapter XVIII: Of Civil War.
• Book IV: Of the Restoration of Peace; and of Embassies
• Chapter I: Of Peace, and the Obligation to Cultivate It.
• Chapter II: Treaties of Peace.
• Chapter III: Of the Execution of the Treaty of Peace.
• Chapter IV: Of the Observance and Breach of the Treaty of Peace.
• Chapter V: Of the Right of Embassy, Or the Right of Sending and Receiving Public Ministers.
• Chapter VI: Of the Several Orders of Public Ministers,—of the Representative Character,—and of the Honours Due to Ministers.
• Chapter VII: Of the Rights, Privileges, and Immunities of Embassadors and Other Public Ministers.
• Chapter VIII: Of the Judge of Embassadors In Civil Cases.
• Chapter IX: Of the Embassador’s House and Domestics.
• Additional Essays
• Essay On the Foundation of Natural Law and On the First Principle of the Obligation Men Find Themselves Under to Observe Laws 1
• Dissertation On This Question: “can Natural Law Bring Society to Perfection Without the Assistance of Political Laws?”
• Dialogue Between the Prince of ****and His Confidant, On Certain Essential Elements of Public Administration
• Biographical Sketches of Authors Referred to By Vattel

CHAPTER I

Of Nations or Sovereign States.

§1. Of the state, and of sovereignty.A nation or a state is, as has been said at the beginning of this work, a body politic, or a society of men united together for the purpose of promoting their mutual safety and advantage by their combined strength.

From the very design that induces a number of men to form a society which has its common interests, and which is to act in concert, it is necessary that there should be established a public authority, to order and direct what is to be done by each in relation to the end of the association. This political authority is the sovereignty; and he or they who are invested with it are the sovereign.

§2. The authority of the body politic over the members.It is evident, that, by the very act of the civil or political association, each citizen subjects himself to the authority of the entire body, in every thing that relates to the common welfare. The authority of all over each member, therefore, essentially belongs to the body politic, or state; but the exercise of that authority may be placed in different hands, according as the society may have ordained.

§3. Of the several kinds of government.If the body of the nation keeps in its own hands the empire or the right to command, it is a popular government, a democracy; if it entrusts it to a certain number of citizens, to a senate, it establishes an aristocratic republic; finally, if it confides the government to a single person, the state becomes a monarchy.

These three kinds of government may be variously combined and modified. We shall not here enter into the particulars; this subject belonging to the public universal law:* for the object of the present work, it is sufficient to establish the general principles necessary for the decision of those disputes that may arise between nations.

§4. What are sovereign states.Every nation that governs itself, under what form soever, without dependence on any foreign power, is a sovereign state. Its rights are naturally the same as those of any other state. Such are the moral persons who live together in a natural society, subject to the law of nations. To give a nation a right to make an immediate figure in this grand society, it is sufficient that it be really sovereign and independent, that is, that it govern itself by its own authority and laws.

§5. Of states bound by unequal alliance.We ought therefore to account as sovereign states those which have united themselves to another more powerful, by an unequal alliance, in which, as Aristotle says, to the more powerful is given more honour, and to the weaker, more assistance.3

The conditions of those unequal alliances may be infinitely varied. But whatever they are, provided the inferior ally reserve to itself the sovereignty, or the right of governing its own body, it ought to be considered as an independent state, that keeps up an intercourse with others under the authority of the law of nations.

§6. Or by treaties of protection.Consequently a weak state, which, in order to provide for its safety, places itself under the protection of a more powerful one, and engages, in return, to perform several offices equivalent to that protection, without however divesting itself of the right of government and sovereignty,—that state, I say, does not, on this account, cease to rank among the sovereigns who acknowledge no other law than that of nations.

§7. Of tributary states.There occurs no greater difficulty with respect to tributary states; for though the payment of tribute to a foreign power does in some degree diminish the dignity of those states, from its being a confession of their weakness,—yet it suffers their sovereignty to subsist entire. The custom of paying tribute was formerly very common,—the weaker by that means purchasing of their more powerful neighbour an exemption from oppression, or at that price securing his protection, without ceasing to be sovereigns.

§8. Of feudatory states.The Germanic nations introduced another custom,—that of requiring homage from a state either vanquished, or too weak to make resistance. Sometimes even, a prince has given sovereignties in fee, and sovereigns have voluntarily rendered themselves feudatories to others.

When the homage leaves independency and sovereign authority in the administration of the state, and only means certain duties to the lord of the fee, or even a mere honorary acknowledgment, it does not prevent the state or the feudatory prince being strictly sovereign. The king of Naples pays homage for his kingdom to the pope, and is nevertheless reckoned among the principal sovereigns of Europe.

§9. Of two states subject to the same prince.Two sovereign states may also be subject to the same prince, without any dependence on each other, and each may retain all its rights as a free and sovereign state. The king of Prussia is sovereign prince of Neufchatel in Switzerland, without that principality being in any manner united to his other dominions; so that the people of Neufchatel, in virtue of their franchises, may serve a foreign power at war with the king of Prussia, provided that the war be not on account of that principality.4

§10. Of states forming a federal republic.Finally, several sovereign and independent states may unite themselves together by a perpetual confederacy, without ceasing to be, each individually, a perfect state. They will together constitute a federal republic: their joint deliberations will not impair the sovereignty of each member, though they may, in certain respects, put some restraint on the exercise of it, in virtue of voluntary engagements. A person does not cease to be free and independent, when he is obliged to fulfil engagements which he has voluntarily contracted.

Such were formerly the cities of Greece; such are at present5 the Seven United Provinces of the Netherlands, and such the members of the Helvetic body.

§11. Of a state that has passed under the dominion of another.But a people that has passed under the dominion of another is no longer a state, and can no longer avail itself directly of the law of nations. Such were the nations and kingdoms which the Romans rendered subject to their empire; the generality even of those whom they honoured with the name of friends and allies no longer formed real states. Within themselves, they were go-verned by their own laws and magistrates; but without, they were in every thing obliged to follow the orders of Rome; they dared not of themselves either to make war or contract alliances; and could not treat with nations.

§12. The objects of this treatise.The law of nations is the law of sovereigns: free and independent states are moral persons, whose rights and obligations we are to establish in this treatise.

[* ] Nor shall we examine which of those different kinds of government is the best. It will be sufficient to say in general, that the monarchical form appears preferable to every other, provided the power of the sovereign be limited, and not absolute—qui [principatus] tum demum regius est, si intra modestiae et mediocritatis fines se contineat, excessu potestatis, quam imprudentes in dies augere satagunt, minuitur, penitusque corrumpitur. Nos stulti, majoris, potentiae specie decepti, dilabimur in contrarium, non satis considerantes eam demum tutam esse potentiam quae viribus modum imponit. [[“This [sovereignty] is indeed kingly, if it confines itself within the bounds of modesty and moderation, with a withdrawal from power. The imprudent daily concern themselves to extend such power, but it is diminished and inwardly corrupted. We fools, taken in by the appearance of superior power, lurch to the opposite conclusion, not sufficiently considering that in the end that power is secure which imposes due measure on its energies” (trans. Eds.). The source is unidentified, but the last sentence quotes Valerius Maximus, Factorum et dictorum memorabilium libri novem, exemplum externum 8, the story of Theopompus. The maxim has both truth and wisdom on its side. The author here quotes the saying of Theopompus, king of Sparta 720–675 bc, who returning to his house amidst the acclamations of the people after the establishment of the Ephori,—“You will leave to your children (said his wife) an authority diminished through your fault.” “True (replied the king): I shall leave them a smaller portion of it; but it will rest upon a firmer basis.” Five Ephors were elected annually to “uphold” the rule of the kings, but instead they became a constraint on the power of the two Spartan kings; hence the comment by Theopompus’s wife. The Lacedaemonians, during a certain period, had two chiefs to whom they very improperly gave the title of kings. They were magistrates who possessed a very limited power, and whom it was not unusual to cite before the tribunal of justice,—to arrest,—to condemn to death.—Sweden acts with less impropriety in continuing to bestow on her chief the title of king, although she has circumscribed his power within very narrow bounds. He shares not his authority with a colleague,—he is hereditary,—and the state has, from time immemorial, borne the title of a kingdom. Note added in 1773/1797 editions.

[3. ] This is Vattel’s sole reference to Aristotle.

[4. ] Although there is no known case of mercenaries from Neuchâtel fighting against Prussian forces, Vattel would have had in mind the battle of Novara (1500), when Swiss troops employed by both France and the Italian states clashed. The event acquired iconic status in Swiss historiography, and its ramifications were extensively discussed by historians such as Wattenwyl.

[5. ] 1758.