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1 - The Law of Nations in Renaissance Europe

from Part I - International Law in Renaissance Europe (1492–1660)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 April 2025

By
Randall Lesaffer
General editor
Randall Lesaffer
Randall Lesaffer
Affiliation:
KU Leuven and Tilburg University
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Summary

The sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries marked a deep crisis of the international political and legal order of Europe, caused by the Reformation, the emergence of some strong composite monarchies and the discovery of the New World. The chapter maps how the law of nations began to emerge as a new paradigm for the governance of Europe under whose wings rulers, diplomats and scholars attempted to advance claims to an exclusive jurisdiction over international relations by sovereign princes and republics. As such, the ‘law of nations’ functioned as a lever, an argument for power in a period of great clashes between centralising governments, opposing confessions, and regional and local elites, rather than representing a reality. The ultimate success by governments in several important states at the end of the Renaissance was facilitated to a great extent by the patrimonial and transactional nature of the states that allowed to include old, autonomous powers in the machinery of state.

Keywords

Renaissance Europelaw of nationsnatural lawsovereigntyjurisprudence
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge History of International Law , pp. 3 - 57
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2025

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References

Further Reading

Bunge, Kirstin, Spindler, Anselm and Wagner, Andreas (eds.), Die Normativiät des Rechts bei Francisco de Vitoria/The Normativity of Law According to Francisco de Vitoria (Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Frommann-Holzboog 2011).Google Scholar
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Kadelbach, Stefan, Kleinlein, Thomas and Roth-Isigkeit, David (eds.), System, Order, and International Law. The Early History of International Legal Thought from Machiavelli to Hegel (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2017).Google Scholar
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