Although in The Law of Nations Vattel dealt with this issue only in passing, he discussed it at length in several of his other writings, notably his Essay on the Foundation of Natural Law and on the First Principle of the Obligation Men Find Themselves Under to Observe Laws. Here he sought to explain how humans could be under an obligation to natural law even in the absence of a punitive superior. Vattel’s main move, primarily aimed at Jean Barbeyrac, was to derive obligation not from any external source, but from what he claimed was man’s most basic motive, namely self-love and a desire for the happiness of a perfect soul.17 Ultimately it was from man’s obligation to himself to attain the highest degree of happiness, which in turn required commerce with other rational beings, that the duty of mutual aid and friendship could be derived.18 This also applied to the obedience citizens owed to the state: “The love and affection a man feels for the state of which he is a member, is a necessary consequence of the wise and rational love he owes to himself, since his own happiness is connected with that of his country” (bk. I, §120). In The Law of Nations Vattel used the same argument with regard to states. As in the case of individuals, a nation’s duty of self-preservation and of self-perfection could be derived only from its basic self-interest and its desire to attain the highest level of national happiness. Moreover, like individuals, nations could attain national happiness only by developing more enlightened forms of self-interest, forms that took into account the well-being of other nations.19 Vattel claimed that the highest degree of national happiness consisted in “true glory” (bk. I, §§186–88). It was acquired through the positive reputation a state enjoyed among well-intentioned nations, and through the respect it received from those seeking to violate the laws of nations. A truly glorious nation, Vattel hoped, would set an example others would wish to emulate. In so doing, it would gradually shift the pathological rivalry between states in the direction of a system based on virtuous competition.20
As a further measure for reducing the tensions between self-preservation and mutual aid, Vattel called upon European rulers and their ministers to implement a wide range of legislative reforms that would allow modern nations to break out of the vicious cycle of public borrowing and taxation and to create a healthier balance between income and expenditure (bk. I, §183). Instead of relying on the distributive effect of luxury and conspicuous consumption, rulers should initiate a new culture of virtuous moderation and encourage agriculture so as to procure “abundance in every thing” (bk. I, §73).21 Although he accepted certain protectionist measures with regard to foreign trade, Vattel insisted that states should intervene as little as possible in the domestic economy and grant individual citizens the maximum amount of natural liberty: “Liberty is the soul of abilities and industry” (bk. I, §74). He also expressly recommended the role of learned societies for the dissemination of technological know-how (bk. I, §76). Vattel believed that of all modern nations Britain had come closest to implementing a system worthy of emulation, and in The Law of Nations he repeatedly singled it out as an example for the rest of Europe, not only with regard to its economy but also with respect to its “admirable constitution.” In contrast with the constitutions of patrimonial states, Britain allowed its citizens to recognize themselves as part of both the nation and the universal society of men (bk. I, §24).22
Contemporaries would have recognized Vattel’s stance on perhaps the central issue of European politics at the time: whether Britain or France would prove the stronger in the international rivalry for supremacy. In supporting Britain’s advocacy of an ongoing European balance of power, rather than French hegemony on mainland Europe that was associated with the peace projects of the Abbé de Saint-Pierre and Victor Riqueti de Mirabeau, Vattel was taking a stand on the domestic stability of mixed government as much as he was on the consequences of such a polity for international affairs. In advocating mixed government in commercial monarchies he was going against the grain of the majority of writers, such as Montesquieu and Rousseau, for whom Britain’s mixed government, with its parties, corruption, and factions, represented an institutionalization of civil war domestically that would have dire consequences if transposed into the dominant form of state internationally. Praise of Britain also allowed Vattel to emphasize the greater modernity of Protestant states by contrast with the backwardness of the religious, moral, and economic practices that he associated with Catholicism. In an openly polemical fashion, Vattel often linked such backwardness with reason of state, or amoral policy, in the international sphere and was always ready to provide examples of the violation of natural law from the history of the papacy. Catholic writers were, however, willing to use Vattel for his broader arguments about the independence of small states. One key example is Cardinal Consalvi at the Congress of Vienna, who employed Vattel’s arguments to justify the sovereignty of the Vatican over the papal states.
Vattel was convinced that if Britain played a more active role in the relations between European states, French aspirations to universal monarchy would be countered. This was expected in turn to safeguard the sovereignty of the smaller states, and especially the Swiss republics, the legitimacy of whose existence was increasingly questioned as public credit allowed the larger monarchies to employ mercenary armies too strong for the old republics, however great their republican valor and virtue. Vattel’s case for the survival of small states in the modern world is one of his main themes, especially in The Law of Nations. Vattel’s association of the law of nations with the defense of small states against more powerful neighbors was illustrated in February 1758, after the Prussian army had destroyed castles belonging to the duke of Saxony. Vattel announced to Brühl that his recently published work proved the legitimacy of Saxony’s complaints and also showed that “all powers are obliged to unite and punish the one who wishes to introduce such wicked customs.”23 Prussia should be held accountable, he explained in a letter addressed to the avoyer24 and Small Council of Berne, for violating the established rules of war that permitted armed conflict only as a last resort after all diplomatic options had been exhausted. Given that Saxony had not only disarmed but even granted passage to Prussian troops, Friedrich’s systematic plundering of Saxony’s riches and forced enlistment of the “entire flower of youth”—a practice that Vattel described as being without precedent among Christian princes—threatened the very possibility of peaceful coexistence among European nations.25
Conclusion
Vattel’s ideas of modern patriotism and encouragement of the economy are not among the most original in The Law of Nations. Nevertheless, they are important because they show the weakness of any attempt to capture Vattel’s position within the analytical framework of retrospective histories of international law or international relations.26 Besides clarifying more thoroughly than previous thinkers the proper relationship between the natural law of individuals and of states, Vattel used his unusually broad intellectual interests to comment on the cultural, political, and economic conditions required for a viable system of international justice. Vattel saw his magnum opus as a contribution to a great European debate on the science of legislation, a debate that analyzed the possibilities available to modern nations to secure liberty and cultural advancement against constant interruption by war. The importance of The Law of Nations therefore resides both in its systematic derivation of international law from natural law and in its compelling synthesis of the modern discourse of natural jurisprudence with the even newer language of political economy. These features help to explain the continuing appeal of this text well into the nineteenth century among politicians, international lawyers, and political theorists of every complexion.27
English Editions of The Law of Nations
Vattel’s Law of Nations was translated anonymously into English several times in the eighteenth century. The first edition of 1760 was based on the French original Droit des gens of 1758. A Dublin translation of 1787 is remarkably fluent and elegant, but it does not include the substantive notes of the original nor, more importantly, the notes added to the posthumous French
