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The Use of Vattel in the American Law of Nations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Brian Richardson
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Extract

Although careful scholarly treatment of the history of international law is now thriving, within U.S. courts that history now begins with one eighteenth-century treatise published in Neuchâtel, Switzerland, in 1758 and published in translation for modern readers under the aegis of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in 1916. This treatise is Emer de Vattel’s Droit des gens ou principes de la loi naturelle, appliqués à la conduite et aux affaires des nations et des souverains. My aim in this article is to appraise the elevation of Vattel to vaunted originalist heights in U.S. law. The claim that Vattel’s theory of the law of nations completely represents how the Founding Fathers (Founders) understood the law of nations should be rejected as a matter of history.

Type
Agora: Kiobel
Information
American Journal of International Law , Volume 106 , Issue 3 , July 2012 , pp. 547 - 571
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of International Law 2012

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References

1 Emer de Vattel, Le droit des gens, ou, Principes de la loi naturelle appliqués à la conduite et aux affaires des nations et des souverains (Fenwick, Charles G. trans., Carnegie Inst. of Washington 1916)Google Scholar (1758). The third volume of this edition is the Fenwick translation, entitled The Law of Nations or the Principles of Natural Law Applied to the Conduct and to the Affairs of Nations and of Sovereigns. This volume also includes a translation (by George D. Gregory) of the original introduction by Albert de Lapradelle.

2 542 U.S. 692 (2004).

3 See Sarei v. Rio Tinto, 671 F.3d 736, 804 (9th Cir. 2011) (Meinfeld, J., dissenting).

4 See Taveras v. Taveraz, 477 F.3d 767, 773 (6th Cir. 2007).

5 Compare Brief for Professors of International Law, Foreign Relations Law and Federal Jurisdiction as Amici Curiae in Support of Respondents at 8-9, 16-18, Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co., No. 10-1491, 2012 WL 379581, at *8 (U.S. Feb. 3, 2012), with Brief for Petitioners at 23-27, Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co., No. 10-1491, 2011 WL 6396550, at *23-24 (U.S. Dec. 14, 2011). A continually updating set of documents on the Supreme Court proceedings in Kiobel is available at http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/kiobel-v-royal-dutch-petroleum-et-al.

6 To collect a few, of many, examples: Mark Weston Janis, America and the Law of Nations 1776- 1939, at 54 (2010); Bellia, Anthony J. Jr. & Clark, Bradford R., The Alien Tort Statute and the Law of Nations, 78 U. Chi. L. Rev. 445, 471-77 (2011)Google Scholar; Vega, Matt A., Balancing Judicial Cognizance and Caution, 31 Mich. J. Int’l L. 385, 409-15 (2010)Google Scholar; Lee, Thomas H., The Safe-Conduct Theory of the Alien Tort Statute, 106 Colum. L. Rev. 830, 847 (2006)Google Scholar.

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9 Pufendorf, Samuel, De jure naturae et gentium. English & Latin (Oldfather, C. H. & Oldfather, W. A. trans., Hein, William S. 1995) (1688)Google Scholar.

10 Reeves, supra note 7, at 551.

11 Hamilton, Alexander, The Farmer Refitted, & c., [23 February] 1775, reprinted in 1 The Papers of Alexan der Hamilton Digital Edition (Syrett, Harold C. ed., 2011)Google Scholar; see also Reeves, supra note 7, at 551.

12 Letter from Franklin, Benjamin to Dumas, Charles (Dec. 19, 1775), in 2 Francis Wharton, The Revolutionary Diplomatic Correspondence of the United States 64–65 (1889)Google Scholar.

13 Id. at 64.

14 See, e.g., Albert de Lapradelle, Introduction to 3 Vattel, supra note 1, at i, xxx.

15 This copy is now at Harvard’s Houghton Library, classmark *AC7.Un33P.Zzlg.

16 Atheneum, Boston, A Catalogue of the Washington Collection in the Boston Athenöum 528 (1897)Google Scholar.

17 Catalog of the Books Belonging to the Library Company of Philadelphia 115, 217 (1807).

18 Wolf, Edwin, The First Books and Printed Catalogues of the Library Company of Philadelphia, 78 Penn. Magazine of History & Biography 45, 57 (1954)Google Scholar.

19 Id. at 45.

20 Id. at 57.

21 3 Vattel, supra note 1, preface, 7a.

22 Id., bk. I, ch. ii, §§13-14 (“If the rights of a Nation are derived from its obligations, they are chiefly derived from those which the Nation owes to itself. We shall likewise see that its duties towards others mainly depend upon, and should be regulated and measured by, its duties towards itself.... [A] moral being can have obligations towards itself only in view to its perfection and its happiness. To preserve andprotectone’s existence ‘is the sum of all duties to self.” (cross-reference omitted)).

23 Emer de Vattel, The Law of Nations: Or Principles of the Law of Nature Applied To the Conduct and Affairs of Sovereigns, preliminaries, §6, at 50 (1st Am. ed. 1796).

24 3 Vattel, supra note 1, preface, 12a.

25 Id., at 10a.

26 Id. at 9a–10a.

27 Id. at 10a.

28 Id., bk. II, ch. i, §3.

29 Id.

30 Id.

31 Vattel distinguishes between perfect and imperfect obligations as follows:

[A] right is always imperfect when the corresponding obligation depends upon the judgment of hi m who owes it; for if he could be constrained in such a case he would cease to have the right of deciding what are his obligations according to the law of conscience. . . . Our obligations to others are always imperfect when the decision as to how we are to act rests with us, as it does in all matters where we ought to be free.

Id., bk. I, intro., §17. Because of his conclusion that many of a state’s perceived rights are not opposable to other nations, Vattel noted that states must “put up with certain things . . ., because they cannot oppose them by force without transgressing the liberty of individual Nations.” Id. §21.

32 Id. §§17-23.

33 Id. §32.

34 Id. §28.

35 Two caveats are important. First, Vattel thought that most of the law of treaties was beyond the purview of Droit des gens: treaties are “questions of fact, to be treated of in historical works.” Id. §24. Second, it is important to stress that there is anachronism involved in my description of “voluntary” as “weak”: for most of the publicists, a consensual or “arbitrary” law could nevertheless give rise to binding duties since one could bootstrap the natural law rule of pacta sunt servanda to render an arbitrary choice binding. Yet for Vattel, it was important to understand that all treaties must include exceptions for the duties of a nation to itself: because the nation’s “duties towards itself clearly prevail over its duties towards others, a Nation owes to itself, as aprime consideration, whatever it can do for its own happiness or advancement.” Id. §14 (emphasis added); see also id., bk. II, ch.xii, §170. Furthermore, Vattel emphasized that his theory of the voluntary law starts with the observation that “on many occasions . . . Nations put up with certain things . . ., because they can not oppose them by force without transgressing the liberty of individual Nations and thus destroy [] the foundations of their natural society .... The rules resulting from [this principle] form what WolrlfJ calls the voluntary Law of Nations.” Id., bk. I, intro., §21; see generally J. L. Brierly, the Law of Nations: An Introduction To the International Law of Peace 29-33 (1928).

36 3 Vattel, supra note 1, bk. II, ch. xii, §170.

37 Id. §178.

38 Id. §183.

39 Id. §196.

40 Fenwick, Charles G., The Authority of Vattelll, 8 Am. Pol. Sci. Rev. 375, 376-88 (1914)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

41 Vattel claimed to draw this insight from Christian Wolff. See Hochstrasser, Tim, Natural Law the Ories in the Early Enlightenment 166–67 (2000)Google Scholar (referring to the “caesura” between the law ornature for states and persons in describing the theories of Wolff and Vattel).

42 See generally Casto, William R., Foreign Affairs and the Constitution in the Age of Fighting Sail 5–18 (2006)Google Scholar.

43 Id. at 20 (quoting Jefferson’s letter to William Short, in which Jefferson told the U.S. minister in Holland that “99 in a hundred citizens” support the late revolutionary events in France).

44 Treaty of Alliance Between the United States of America and His Most Christian Majesty, Feb. 6, 1778, 8 Stat. 6 (1867).

45 Treaty of Amity and Commerce Between the United States of America and His Most Christian Majesty, Feb. 6, 1778, 8 Stat. 12 (1867).

46 Treaty of Alliance Between the United States of America and His Most Christian Majesty, supra note 44, Art. Xi.

47 Treaty of Amity and Commerce Between the United States of America and His Most Christian Majesty, supra note 45, Art. XXII.

48 Treaty of Alliance Between the United States of America and His Most Christian Majesty, supra note 44, Art I.

49 Casto, supra note 42, at 17.

50 In addition to disrupting British commerce in U.S. ports, Citizen Genet was also directed to spread the revolution to Canada, Florida, and Louisiana, and to secure an early repayment of the revolutionary war debt to France. See generally Harry Ammon, The Genet Mission 26 (1973).

51 Letter from Washington, George to Morris, Gouverneur (Mar. 25,1793), in 1 American State Papers 397 (Lowrie, Walter & Clarke, Matthew St. Claire eds., 1832)Google Scholar.

52 Letter from Washington, George to Jefferson, Thomas (Apr. 12, 1793), in 25 Papers of Thomas Jefferson 518, 541Google Scholar.

53 Proclamation of Neutrality, Apr. 22, 1793, in 1 American State Papers 140 (Lowrie, Walter & Clarke, Matthew St. Claire eds., 1832)Google Scholar.

54 Id.

55 Id.

56 Hamilton, Alexander to Washington, George (cabinet paper), in 4 The Works of Alexander Hamilton 369, 370-71 (1904)Google Scholar (quoting Droit des gens, bk. II, ch. xii, §197).

57 Jefferson, Thomas, Notes on Washington’s Questions on Neutrality and the Alliance with France (May 6, 1793), in The Papers of Thomas Jefferson Digital Edition (Oberg, Barbara B. & Looney, Jefferson eds., 2008)Google Scholar.

58 Id.

59 Id.

60 Alexander Hamilton to George Washington (cabinet paper), supra note 56, at 385.

61 Thomas Jefferson, Opinion on French Treaties, in 7 Works of Thomas Jefferson 283, 283 (1904)Google Scholar.

62 Id 285.

63 Id at 286.

64 Id.

65 Weinfeld, Abraham C., What Did the Framers of the Federal Constitution Mean by Agreements or Compacts?, 3 U. Chi. L. Rev. 453, 461 (1936)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Weinfeld’s article was later quoted in U.S. Steel Corp. v. Multistate Tax Comm’n, 434 U.S. 452, 463 (1978), which itself is cited as an authoritative judicial determination that the Founders were Vattelian. See, e.g., Sarei v. Rio Tinto, 671 F.3d 736, 804 & n.40 (9th Cir. 2011) (Kleinfeld, J., dissenting).

66 Jefferson, supra note 61, at 295.

67 Jefferson, Thomas, Notes on Washington’s Questions (May 6, 1793), in 1 Writings of Thomas Jeffer Son 227 (Ford, Paul ed., 1892)Google Scholar.

68 Jay, John, Charge to Grand Jury, Richmond, Virginia, May 22, 1793, in 3 the Correspondence and Public Papers of John Jay 1782-1793, at 478, 480-82 (Johnston, Henry P. ed., 1891)Google Scholar; see generally Hulsebosch, Daniel & Golove, David, A Civilized Nation: Early American Constitution, the Law of Nations, and the Pursuit of International Recognition, 85 N.Y.U. L. Rev. 932 (2010)Google Scholar.

69 Randolph, Edmund, Edmund Randolph’s Opinion on the Grange, in 26 Papers of Thomas Jefferson (11 May-31 August 1793), at 31 (2008)Google Scholar.

70 Lord Hale had developed the intra fauces terrae principle centuries earlier in a case discussing the sovereign status of the Bay of Bristol. Matthew Hale, De Jure Maris 10 (1787).

71 3 Vattel, supra note 1, bk. I, ch. xxiii, §291.

72 Oppenheim, Lassa, The Science of International Law: Its Task and Method, 2 AJIL 313, 316 (1908)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

73 Letter from James Brown Scott to William Barnum (Apr. 4, 1916), Rare Book and Manuscript Library of Columbia University, Carnegie Endowment of International Peace Records, Division of International Law [hereinafter CEIP Division of International Law], vol. 344, no. 185. The Carnegie Endowment records were recently rebound. All citations are to the finding aid as of July 2012; the archival documents cited here and in subsequent notes can be located using the volume and document numbers provided.

74 Letter from S. R. Kjeen to James Brown Scott (Nov. 25, 1909). Ceip Division of International Law, supra note 73, vol. 246, no. 1471.

75 Lectures at the Hopkins, Balt. Sun, Feb. 9, 1908, at 7.

76 Letter from James Brown Scott to Robert S. Woodward (Dec. 26, 1911), Ceip Division of International Law, supra note 73, vol. 346, no. 1409.

77 See generally Scott, James Brown, The Neutrality Board, 13 AJIL 308 (1919)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; McDiarmid, Alice Morrissey, The Neutrality Board and Armed Merchantmen, 1914-1917, 69 AJIL 374 (1975)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

78 See, e.g., Joint State and Navy Neutrality Board, Opinion No. 91: Exercise of Reprisal in Connection with the Falába, Cushing, Gulflight and Lusitania Cases 2 (May 11, 1915) (discussing the right to reprisal by quoting extensively from Scott’s contemporary publicists Pereis, Oppenheim, Holland, Stockton, Bonfils, Pillet, and Rivier).

79 Letter from James Brown Scott to John Pawley Bate (Sept. 3,1914), Ceip Division of International Law, supra note 73, vol. 261, no. 1857 (“I find great difficulty in persuading myself that I am really awake and not suffering from a hideous nightmare. The wars are, however, only too true, and I hope that the end, for the end must come (please God it may be soon), will in some inscrutable way make for progress. It is wonderful in this world of ours how right is liberated, as it were, from wrong, and that crime itself brings forth indirectly good fruit. I dare not say more and I can not say less.”).

80 Letter from James Brown Scott to Lassa Oppenheim (Nov. 19, 1914), Ceip Division of International Law, supra note 73, vol. 261, nos. 1870-71.

81 Letter from James Brown Scott to William Barnum, supra note 73.

82 Letter from James Brown Scott to Charles G. Fenwick (Apr. 23, 1915), Ceip Division of International Law, supra note 73, vol. 345, no. 710.

83 James Brown Scott, Preface, 1 Vattel, supra note 1, at 1 a, 2a.

84 Id.

85 Id.

86 Letter from James Brown Scott to William Barnum (Mar. 30, 1916), CEIP Division of International Law, supra note 73, vol. 344, no. 179.

87 Lapradelle, supra note 14.

88 See infra note 89 and accompanying text.

85 Oct. 18, 1907, 36 Stat. 2415, 1 Bevans 723. Another convention, Hague Convention (V) Respecting the Rights and Duties of Neutral Powers and Persons in Case of War on Land, Oct. 18, 1907, 36 Stat. 2310, 1 Bevans 654, addressed neutrality in case of land war.

90 Charles G. Fenwick, The Neutrality Laws of the United States, at viii (1913).

91 Id at 6.

92 Article 9 provides that

a neutral power must apply impartially to the two belligerents the conditions, restrictions, or prohibitions made by it in regard to the admission into its ports, roadsteads, or territorial waters, of belligerent war-ships or of their prizes. Nevertheless a neutral Power may forbid a belligerent vessel which has failed to conform to the orders and regulations made by it, or which has violated neutrality, to enter its ports or roadsteads.

Hague Convention (XIII) Concerning the Rights and Duties of Neutral Powers in Naval War, supra note 89, Art. 9.

93 Fen Wick, supra note 90, at 6.

94 Fenwick, Charles G., The Authority of Vattel, 7 Am. Pol. Sci. Rev. 395 (1913)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Fenwick, supra note 40.

95 Fenwick’s effort to count citations to Vattel in early U.S. case law was later aided by Edwin Dickinson, who conducted an informal citation count of references to Vattel for this Journal in 1932. See Dickinson, Edwin D., Changing Concepts in the Doctrine of Incorporation, 26 AJIL 239, 241 (1932)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

96 Fenwick, supra note 94, at 395.

97 Id.

98 Id. at 400.

99 Id. at 401.

100 Id. at 402.

101 Id. at 403.

102 Id. at 405.

103 Id. at 404.

104 Id. at 406.

105 Id. at 404.

106 Id. at 395.

107 Id.

108 Id. at 410, n.36 (emphasis added).

109 Fenwick, supra note 40, at 390.

110 Id. at 388.

111 Id. at 389.

112 See generally Charles G. Fenwick, The League of Nations After Six Years (1930).

113 Charles G. Fenwick, American Neutrality: Trial and Failure 4-5 (1940).

114 Fenwick, supra note 94, at 405.

115 Fenwick, supra note 113, at 10-11.

116 Kent, 1 Commentaries 18-19 (1826); see also The Paquete Habana, 175 U.S. 677, 701 (1900).

117 Skinner, Quentin, Meaning and Understanding in the History of Ideas, 8 Hist. & Theory 3, 52 (1969)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.