Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-mlc7c Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-08T00:22:36.350Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

2 - Sovereignty Contested

Vattel’s Use of Leibniz, Hobbes, and Pufendorf

from Part I - Historical and Intellectual Contexts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 June 2021

Peter Schröder
Affiliation:
University College London
Get access

Summary

The modern state is the institution to which human beings have entrusted the coercive power they deem necessary and legitimate to regulate the lives that they lead together in a bounded community. The name for the legitimate coercive power of the modern state is sovereignty. The state is sovereign internally because it possesses the effective monopoly on this legitimate coercive power within its own clearly demarcated territory; it gives force to the law that it makes. It is also sovereign internally because it is the only author of the laws that have jurisdiction within its territory. The state is sovereign externally because its monopoly of power within its boundaries excludes its domination by or dependence upon any other state. It is also sovereign externally because its sole authority over itself means that it brooks no interference from other states affecting its constitution or government, and nor does it accept the writ of other states. It is, in short, subject to no other power or authority and must chart its own course as a free actor on the world stage. Finally, the modern state is externally sovereign because it is the only entity in a position reciprocally to recognise others as its sovereign equals. There is no higher authority from which a modern state may draw its claim to assume for itself the powers of the earth.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Primary Sources

Vattel, E., Défense du système leibnitien contra les objections et les imputations de M. de Crousaz (Leiden, 1741). [DSL]Google Scholar
Vattel, E., ‘Essay on the foundation of natural law and on the first principle of the obligation men find themselves under to observe laws’, in The Law of Nations, ed. Kapossy, B. and Whatmore, R. (Indianapolis, 2008). [FNL]Google Scholar

Secondary Sources

Beaulac, S., Power of Language in the Making of International Law: The Word ‘Sovereignty’ in Bodin and Vattel and the Myth of Westphalia (Leiden, 2004), chap. 7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holland, B., The Moral Person of the State: Pufendorf, Sovereignty and Composite Polities (Cambridge, 2017), chap. 3.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hunter, I., ‘Vattel’s Law of Nations: Diplomatic casuistry for the protestant nation’, Grotiana 31 (2010), 108140.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

  • Sovereignty Contested
  • Edited by Peter Schröder, University College London
  • Book: Concepts and Contexts of Vattel's Political and Legal Thought
  • Online publication: 11 June 2021
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108784009.004
Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

  • Sovereignty Contested
  • Edited by Peter Schröder, University College London
  • Book: Concepts and Contexts of Vattel's Political and Legal Thought
  • Online publication: 11 June 2021
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108784009.004
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Sovereignty Contested
  • Edited by Peter Schröder, University College London
  • Book: Concepts and Contexts of Vattel's Political and Legal Thought
  • Online publication: 11 June 2021
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108784009.004
Available formats
×