CORNELIUS VAN BYNKERSHOEK (1673–1743), Dutch jurist and author of many works on public and international law, including comprehensive treatises on Roman law, the law of the sea, and the rights and duties of ambassadors. Because he sometimes draws upon the practice of states to establish his conclusions, Bynkershoek is often, if misleadingly, considered a pioneer of international legal positivism, the theory that international law must be inferred from state practice rather than deduced from natural law; in fact, he draws upon both. The following extract from his On Questions of Public Law (1737), dealing with the law of treaties, illustrates how international lawyers handled the tensions between principle and expediency during the classical age of European diplomacy.

From On Questions of Public Law

On the observance of public agreements and whether there are any tacit exceptions

Civil law guards the contracts of individuals, considerations of honour, those of princes. If you destroy good faith, you destroy all intercourse between princes, for intercourse depends expressly upon treaties; you even destroy international law, which has its origin in tacitly accepted and presupposed agreements founded upon reason and usage. That treaties must be kept in good faith lest you destroy all this is readily granted, even by those who have learned nothing but treachery and all but frustrate the rules of good faith by numberless exceptions. Whether, however, a public agreement is always and everywhere to be kept inviolate is a very difficult question.

RICHARD COBDEN (1804–65), English publicist and politician. Although born in rural Sussex, Cobden became the leading figure in the “Manchester School” of liberalism, representing the interests of Lancashire manufacturers and industrialists, especially in the cotton industry. He was the leading publicist for the Anti-Corn Law League, which promoted free trade in agricultural products. A strong opponent of traditional diplomacy, Cobden regarded general free trade as the only route to international peace. The following extracts from a comparatively early pamphlet on Russia (1836) set out his opposition to the idea of balance of power and to any British intervention in overseas quarrels, and in the process lay out many of the themes which would be developed in twentieth-century liberal internationalism.

From The Political Writings of Richard Cobden

British intervention in the state policy of the Continent has been usually excused under the two stock pretences of maintaining the balance of power in Europe, and of protecting our commerce; upon which two subjects, as they bear indirectly on the question in hand, we shall next offer a few observations.

The first instance in which we find the “balance of power” alluded to in a king's speech is on the occasion of the last address of William III. to his Parliament, December 31, 1701, where he concludes by saying – “I will only add this – if you do in good earnest desire to see England hold the balance of Europe, it will appear by your right improving the present opportunity.

ADAM SMITH (1723–90), political economist, moral philosopher, and central figure in the Scottish Enlightenment. His The Wealth of Nations (1776) is a central document in liberal and political theory. The following brief extract sets out the case for an international division of labor.

From The Wealth of Nations

A country that has no mines of its own must undoubtedly draw its gold and silver from foreign countries in the same manner as one that has no vineyards of its own must draw its wines. It does not seem necessary, however, that the attention of government should be more turned towards the one than towards the other object. A country that has wherewithal to buy wine will always get the wine which it has occasion for; and a country that has wherewithal to buy gold and silver will never be in want of those metals. They are to be bought for a certain price like all other commodities, and as they are the price of all other commodities, so all other commodities are the price of those metals. We trust with perfect security that the freedom of trade, without any attention of government, will always supply us with the wine which we have occasion for: and we may trust with equal security that it will always supply us with all the gold and silver which we can afford to purchase or to employ, either in circulating our commodities, or in other uses.

By the middle of the seventeenth century monarchs had consolidated their powers at the expense of other princes and the church. The modern territorial state was on its way to displacing the complicated feudal, urban, and ecclesiastical arrangements of medieval Europe. Advances in military technology and administrative machinery provided territorial sovereigns with instruments of power to reinforce their claims to authority, and the resulting concentration of power and authority generated an identifiable system of states ordered by its own imperatives and practices. These changes invited efforts to define the rights of sovereigns in their dealings with one another and to articulate principles of statecraft, prudential as well as moral, appropriate to the new international system.

In this chapter, we focus on the theories of sovereignty and reason of state that accompanied the emergence of the modern European state from its medieval antecedents, and on the new conceptions of diplomacy and statecraft to which these theories gave rise. The former are best illustrated in the sixteenth-century writings of Machiavelli and Bodin; the latter in writings of the statesmen and scholars who theorized the new, decentralized, system of states during its “classical” period, the eighteenth century. We leave to chapters 6 and 7 the writings of more philosophical writers, like Hobbes, Rousseau, and Kant, who, in criticizing the presuppositions of this system, pointed the way toward its transformation.

EUSEBIUS PAMPHILI, as he is sometimes known because of his association with the theologian and scholar Pamphilus, was born in 263 ce. At the age of about thirty, while still a lay disciple of Pamphilus, he met the future emperor of Rome, Constantine, while the latter was travelling through Caesarea. Eusebius, later to write a life of Constantine, was deeply impressed. Some years later, after he had become bishop of Caesarea and Constantine had become emperor, Eusebius became the chief apologist and expounder of Constantinian theories of kingship and a force in many of the key theological controversies of his day, being present for example at the Council of Nicaea held between 20 May and 19 June 325 ce, the central Christian conference of the time. His key political work was the so-called Tricennial Orations, orations delivered to celebrate the thirteenth year of Constantine's reign and which were to shape the political thought of the Byzantine empire (as the eastern Roman empire is usually called) for nearly a thousand years. His chief importance was the adaptation of the Greek theory of kingship and government to the very changed circumstances of Constantine's Rome and of early Christianity. Eusebius died in 339, two years after his beloved emperor.

From Tricennial Orations

“In Praise of Constantine”

(8) Where the column of God-defying giants and the hissing of serpents, who with sharpened tongues loosed godless voices against the Ruler of All?

KARL MARX (1818–83) and Friedrich Engels (1820–95), revolutionaries. “The Communist Manifesto” had little influence at its time of publication during the 1848 revolutions in Europe but has since become the most influential pamphlet of the nineteenth century. The short extracts printed below point to the international nature of capitalism and the way in which capitalism has, allegedly, undermined the notion of nationality – although it might be argued that the actual history of the last century and a half suggests that capitalism is more likely to promote than to undermine nationalist sentiment.

From “The Communist Manifesto”

The discovery of America and the voyages round Africa provided fresh territory for the rising bourgeoisie. The East Indian and Chinese market, the colonisation of America, the colonial trade, the general increase in the means of exchange and of commodities, all gave to commerce, to sea transport, to industry a boost such as never before, hence quick development to the revolutionary element in a crumbling feudal society.

But markets were ever growing and demand ever rising. Even small-scale manufacture no longer sufficed to supply them. So steampower and machinery revolutionised industrial production.

Both the “state” and, perhaps less obviously, the “nation” are terms which recur in international political theory; nonetheless, both terms came to have rather different meanings from past usage in the course of the period from the end of the eighteenth century to the outbreak of the First World War. Moreover, the two meanings became interwoven one with another, such that in the course of our own century it has become common to regard them as almost synonymous, or at least both incorporated in the composite term “nation-state” – even though it is very difficult to arrive at a substantive definition of a nation which would allow more than a minority of the actual states of today to qualify, for all their membership of the United Nations. The purpose of the texts which follow this introduction is to set out the international implications of these changes in meaning.

If one were to attempt to encapsulate as simply as possible the nature of these changes, it would be by noting the emergence of the idea of an “ethical” state and the principle of national sovereignty. In past thinking – at least in the Christian era – the state had been understood as an institution which was either a necessary evil, as a partial antidote to human sinfulness, or a clever, contracted, solution to the problem of the egoism generated by the human condition in a state of nature.

JEAN BODIN (1530–96), French humanist, lawyer, administrator, and scholar. Bodin was one of the first to attribute rising prices in sixteenth-century Europe to the influx of gold from America and he also wrote a book on the detection and punishment of witches. He is one of several thinkers of the period who were concerned to explore the question of how competing claims to rule within the emerging territorial states of Europe might be resolved. For Bodin, it is the possession of “sovereignty” that distinguishes the ruler of a state from other authorities. Despite his erroneous conclusion that sovereign authority cannot be divided between different branches of government, his discussion of the concept constitutes an innovative and enduring contribution to the legal theory, one with momentous consequences for international relations.

From Six Books of the Commonwealth

On sovereignty

Sovereignty is the absolute and perpetual power of a commonwealth, which the Latins call maiestas; the Greeks akra exousia, kurion arche, and kurion politeuma; and the Italians segnioria, a word they use for private persons as well as for those who have full control of the state, while the Hebrews call it tomech shévet – that is, the highest power of command. We must now formulate a definition of sovereignty because no jurist or political philosopher has defined it, even though it is the chief point, and the one that needs most to be explained, in a treatise on the commonwealth.

CHARLES-IRENÉE CASTEL, ABBÉ DE SAINT-PIERRE, was born in 1658 into the minor aristocracy. He frequented the Parisian salons fashionable in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and gained his entrance to court through the patronage of the Duchess of Orleans. He was a member of the French delegation which negotiated the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 and thus had diplomatic and political experience. He wrote on many aspects of French politics, but it was his A Project for Settling an Everlasting Peace in Europe (1713) for which he is chiefly remembered and which spurred thinkers much greater than he (Leibniz, Rousseau, and Kant to name but three) to consider his proposals and develop their own. He died in 1743.

A project for settling an everlasting peace in Europe

“First proposed by Henry IV of France, and approved of by Queen Elizabeth, and most of the then Princes of Europe, and now discussed at large and made practicable

Fundamental articles

The Present Sovereigns, by their under-written Deputies, have agreed to the following articles: There shall be from this Day following a Society, a permanent and perpetual Union, between the Sovereigns subscribed, and if possible among all the Christian Sovereigns, in the Design to make the Peace unalterable in Europe; and in that view the Union shall make, if possible, with its neighbours the Mahometan Sovereigns, Treaties of Alliance, offensive and defensive, to keep each of them in Peace within the Bounds of his Territory, by taking of them and giving to them, all possible reciprocal Securities.

DAVID RICARDO (1772–1823), banker and political economist. Ricardo's Principles of Political Economy and Taxation (1817) is a foundation stone for contemporary economic theory. The following extract sets out his demonstration that there are gains to be made from trade even when one of the countries involved can make all the goods traded cheaper than can another; all that is required for there to be gains from trade is that comparative costs be different. This is one of the few theories of the nineteenth century which, suitably amended, is still part of twenty-first century economics; it remains the basis for liberal internationalism and the belief that trade promotes peace.

From “On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation”

Under a system of perfectly free commerce, each country naturally devotes its capital and labour to such employments as are most beneficial to each. This pursuit of individual advantage is admirably connected with the universal good of the whole. By stimulating industry, by rewarding ingenuity, and by using most efficaciously the peculiar powers bestowed by nature, it distributes labour most effectively and most economically: while, by increasing the general mass of productions, it diffuses general benefit, and binds together by one common tie of interest and intercourse, the universal society of nations throughout the civilized world. It is this principle which determines that wine shall be made in France and Portugal, that corn shall be grown in America and Poland, and that hardware and other goods shall be manufactured in England.

With the coming of Christianity to Rome, the character of Graeco-Roman political thought began to change. Christianity introduced a whole series of questions which were largely alien to classical thought, most obviously for our purposes here the whole question of the justice of the use of force as such. At the same time, the political collapse of the Western half of the Roman empire in the second half of the fifth century ce, together with the political and military longevity of the East – which was to survive as a vibrant political force at least until at least the shattering Byzantine defeat at the battle of Manzikert in 1071 and to survive as a presence until 1453, when Constantinople was captured by the Ottoman Turks – led to ever-increasing plurality in political thought and practice. This was coupled, of course, with the rise and spread of new political and religious movements such as Islam (after the seventh century) which provided a very different context for political thought than the mix of Greek, Roman, and Christian ideas dominant in Western and Eastern Europe. However, classical – especially Greek – thought remained influential on all the major traditions – Christian, Jewish, and Islamic – of Europe and Asia Minor during this period (Lerner and Mahdi, 1963; Burns, 1988).

This chapter will principally focus on the Christian and Islamic worlds, for the interpenetrating and intellectual crossover at this time was very strong and because these two faiths were dominant – though by no means, of course, monolithic – and we shall also refer to Judaic thinking from time to time (an excerpt from Maimonides' Logic is included to show how Judaic political thinking was classified at the time – see pp. 111–14 below).

AUGUSTINE was born into a lower middle class family at Thagaste in North Africa in 354 ce, the son of a pagan father and a Christian mother. Brought up as a Christian, he was educated locally and then at the age of sixteen went to the great North African metropolis of Carthage to complete his education, where he gradually lost his traditional Christian faith, becoming instead a Manichee (a follower of the heretic Mani). On completion of his studies, Augustine decided upon a teaching career and moved to Rome. In 383 he founded his own school of rhetoric at Rome and shortly thereafter he moved to teach rhetoric at Milan. By this point he had a mistress (whose name we do not know) who had borne him a son, Adeodatus, to whom Augustine was devoted. However, Adeodatus died young and Augustine and his mistress separated. Then, in 386, Augustine came under the spell of the powerful and charismatic Christian bishop of Milan, Ambrose, as well as intellectually becoming part of the Neoplatonic group in Milan. This swiftly undermined his Manicheanism and led him to become a Platonist. However, his mind and spirit gradually pulled him back to the church and he was baptized as a Christian in 387. He returned to Africa, where his mother, overjoyed at his return to the faith, finally died in 388. He was ordained as a priest in 391 and lived in a religious community until 395 when he was consecrated bishop of Hippo.

BERNARD BOSANQUET (1848–1923), English Idealist (i.e. Hegelian) philosopher, highly influential, along with his colleagues T. H. Green and F. H. Bradley, in the last quarter of the nineteenth and first quarter of the twentieth century, author of The Philosophical Theory of the State (1899), the most important work of Hegelian political philosophy published in English. With the outbreak of war in 1914, German philosophy came to be suspect in England, with Hegelianism seen as supportive of German militarism. Bosanquet's “Patriotism in the perfect state” (printed below) offers another point of view; in the process, Bosanquet provides one of the best brief introductions to Hegelian political philosophy available.

“Patriotism in the perfect state”

The quality of patriotism is determined by what we desire for our country, as the quality of friendship is determined by what we desire for our friend. And this question – the question what it is that we desire for our country – is of supreme moment to-day, because in the answer given to it, whether by practice or in principle, are rooted the permanent underlying conditions of war and peace.

Assuming then that what is true of principles is true of the corresponding practice, whether or no the actors understand what they are doing, I will ask you to consider with me three typical ideas expressive of what men desire for their country, each of them bearing a distinctive relation to the causes and customs of war, and to the permanent basis of peace.

DANTE ALIGHIERI (1265–1321), Italian poet and author of the Divine Comedy. Dante served his native city, Florence, as a councilor and ambassador until he ended up on the wrong side in the turbulent civil conflicts of the period. Exiled from Florence, he abandoned politics for poetry, supported by patrons in Verona, Ravenna, and other Italian cities. In his Monarchy (c. 1320), Dante defends the medieval ideal of a single authority for the entire world. Only such an authority, he argues, can guarantee the universal peace and liberty that is required if human beings are to fulfill their potential.

From Monarchy

Firstly therefore we must see what is meant by ‘temporal monarchy’, in broad terms and as it is generally understood. Temporal monarchy, then, which men call ‘empire’, is a single sovereign authority set over all others in time, that is to say over all authorities which operate in those things and over those things which are measured by time. Now there are three main points of inquiry which have given rise to perplexity on this subject: first, is it necessary to the well-being of the world? second, did the Roman people take on the office of the monarch by right? and third, does the monarch's authority derive directly from God or from someone else (his minister or vicar)?

HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE (1834–96) was the leading historian and political scientist of Imperial Germany in the late nineteenth century. An apologist for force and an ardent anti-Semite, he is the supreme exponent of “power politics” and (unlike Hegel) can reasonably be seen as a forerunner of German militarism and National Socialism in the twentieth century. The following extracts are taken from his Politics, which was translated in Britain in the middle of the First World War in order to elucidate the roots of German “frightfulness.”

From Politics

International law and international intercourse

When we ask, does an international law exist at all? we are met by two extreme and contradictory conceptions, both alike untenable, of the international life of States. The first, the naturalistic, whose chief champion we already know to be Machiavelli, starts from the principle that the State is absolute power, and may do anything which serves its ends, consequently it can bind itself by no law in its relations with other States, which are determined by purely mechanical considerations of proportionate strength. This is an idea which can only be disproved by its own arguments. We must admit that the State is absolute physical power, but if it insists upon being that, and nothing else, unrestrained by conscience or reason, it will no longer be able to maintain itself in a position of security.

FRANÇOIS DE SALIGNAC DE LA MOTHE FÉNELON (1651–1715), French bishop and author of works of popular philosophy, rhetoric, and education. A passionate enemy of repression, Fénelon attacked the abuses of absolute monarchy, among them Louis XIV's recurrent wars of national aggrandizement, and may be counted as a feminist of sorts for his denunciation of the inferior education open to women in his day. For Fénelon, not only are kings subject to the moral law but there can be no real conflict between morality and policy. His brief “On the Necessity of Forming Alliances” (1700), which explains the true principles of the balance of power, was appended to an essay intended to instruct a future Louis XV on the duties of kingship. The translation, by Susan Rosa, appears for the first time in this volume.

“On the Necessity of Forming Alliances”

An Examination of Conscience on the Duties of Kingship, composed for the instruction of Louis de France, Duc de Bourgogne, supplement I: on the necessity of forming alliances, both offensive and defensive, against a foreign power that manifestly aspires to universal monarchy

Neighboring states are obliged not only to treat one another according to the rules of justice and good faith, but must also, both for the sake of their own security and the common interest, create for themselves a kind of society and general republic.

CHRISTIAN VON WOLFF (1679–1754), German mathematician, philosopher, and, after 1740, professor of law at the University of Halle. Inspired in part by Leibniz, Wolff gradually developed a comprehensive, and thoroughly rationalist, philosophical system. In ethics, he held that moral laws depend not on God's will but are part of the natural world and can therefore be known by natural reason. His ideas about international law, which are imbued by this rationalist spirit, constitute but a tiny part of his philosophical system.

From The Law of Nations Treated According to a Scientific Method

Prolegomena

Definition of the Law of Nations

By the Law of Nations we understand the science of that Law which nations or peoples use in their relations with each other and of the obligations corresponding thereto.

How nations are to be regarded

Nations are regarded as individual free persons living in a state of nature. For they consist of a multitude of men united into a state.

THOMAS HOBBES (1588–1679), English philosopher and author of Leviathan (1651), a work acknowledged to be a masterpiece of political theorizing even by those who abominate its conclusions. Central to its argument is a metaphor, the state of nature, to which Hobbes contrasts the civil state. Unlike the state of nature, the civil state is a condition in which human beings are associated on the basis of a common body of laws. Law, Hobbes argued, can only exist where there are agreed procedures for enacting rules and resolving disputes about their proper interpretation. Sovereigns, being outside civil society, must be regarded as being in a state of nature with respect to one another. And the state of nature is a state of war. It is not easy to refute this Skepticism regarding the claims of international law, and for that reason Hobbes' writings continue to provoke thought about the character and conditions of justice in international relations.

From Leviathan

Of the natural condition of mankind, as concerning their felicity, and misery

Nature has made men so equal, in the faculties of body, and mind; as that though there be found one man sometimes manifestly stronger in body, or of quicker mind then another; yet when all is reckoned together, the difference between man, and man, is not so considerable, as that one man can thereupon claim to himself any benefit, to which another may not pretend, as well as he.