Displacing Vitoria? Carl Schmitt on Emer de Vattel in the History of Modern Ius Gentiums

Maximiliano Hernández Marcos

Chapter 15 Displacing Vitoria? Carl Schmitt on Emer de Vattel in the History of Modern Ius Gentiums

In: Carl Schmitt and Francisco de Vitoria

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Maximiliano Hernández Marcos

Maximiliano Hernández Marcos
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Type:: Chapter

Pages:: 379–403

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004757448_016

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Abstract

In Nomos der Erde (1950), Carl Schmitt places Francisco de Vitoria at the threshold of the classical ius gentium europaeum and presents Emer de Vattel, by contrast, as its culmination – having legally confined war to a regulated conflict between states, whose formal equality rests on the full sovereignty of each, the sole pillar of the international order. The purpose of this chapter is to qualify Schmitt’s thesis on Vattel by showing that the Swiss jurist, although making state sovereignty the subject of the law of nations, nonetheless recognises the legitimate authority of the ‘natural society of nations’ to impose limits on any unjust or inhuman exercise of a state’s sovereign power. This is grounded in another foundational pillar of Vattel’s law of nations – omitted by Schmitt – namely, the natural sociability of human beings as the ultimate source of the international community.

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Carl Schmitt and Francisco de Vitoria

The Paradox of Universalism in International Law

Series: Legal History Library, Volume: 84/31 and Studies in the History of International Law, Volume: 84/31

Cover Carl Schmitt and Francisco de Vitoria

E-Book ISBN:: 9789004757448

Publisher:: Brill | Nijhoff

Print Publication Date:: 12 Mar 2026

Subjects
- History
- International Relations
  - International Relations

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Chapter 15 Displacing Vitoria? Carl Schmitt on Emer de Vattel in the History of Modern Ius Gentiums

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Carl Schmitt and Francisco de Vitoria

The Paradox of Universalism in International Law

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