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Vitoria and International Law Today
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 October 2024
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The great Dominican Order of which St Thomas Aquinas is the finest flower may still be, in the minds of many Englishmen, ‘in a special way associated with the Inquisition in Spain. It may therefore come as a surprise to those unacquainted with the work of Francisco de Vitoria, to learn that it was a Spanish Dominican, who died four hundred years ago, who was in his day Europe’s foremost champion of the rule of international law and of human rights. Of Basque origin, Vitoria was an active university teacher at the violent epoch when the Spaniards, having defeated the Moors at home, were founding their American colonies. Vitoria's opinions commanded wide attention among his contemporaries; so much so, that his idealism incurred for him considerable opposition in powerful governmental circles at a time when interests and passions combined to obscure impartial thinking on international affairs.
It may be instructive, in what follows, to compare some of Vitoria’s principles (as set out and expounded in the collections of his works produced and introduced by J. B. Scott for the Carnegie Endowment for international peace) with the principles now to be found in the United Nations Charter, the latest constructive attempt to create an international order.
No doubt the discovery of the Americas by Columbus in 1492, when Vitoria was young, was an event just as stupefying as the discovery of the atomic bomb is to us. The mariner’s astrolobe of 1480 may be compared with the cyclotron of today. Neither of these wonders has prevented international lawyers from facing the future and applying their principles to new problems and unthought-of circumstances.
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- Copyright © 1946 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers
References
1 Encycl. Brit. 11th ed., vol. 8, p. 403.
2 J. B. Scott, Spanish Oriqin of International Law. Pt. 1. Carnegie Endowment. p. 84. 3 J. B. Scott, op. cit.
4 H.M.S.0. 6666/465. 1/3.
5 T B. Scott, op. cit. p. 81.
6 Cmd. 9099, p. 22.
7 See also article 55.
8 See article 68 and p. 10 of ‘A Commentary on the Charter of the United Nations’. Cmd. 6666:45. H.M.S.O., 1/8. The work to be done by the Commission on Human Bights has been officially outlined. It includes the formation of an international bill of rights and conventions, on civil liberties, status of women, freedom of information, the protection of minorities, the prevention of discrimination on grounds of race, sex, language, religion and matters within the field of human rights likely to impair the general welfare or friendly relations among nations. Commentary on the Report of the Preparatory Commission of the U.N. Cmd. 6734/46. (4/‐) p. 54, paras. 15–17. For an interesting recent attempt to anticipate this, see Lanterpacht: An International Bill of the Rights of Man. N. York.
9 See the excellent article of V. Idleson, K.C. in Transactions of the Grotius Society. Vol. xxi,Google Scholar Law of Nations and the individual.
10 p. cit. p. 196.
11 ltalics by the writer. Becall the Alabama Claims after the American Civil War.
12Wortley: Idealism in International Law: A Spanish view of the Colonial Problem. Vol. 24, Trans, of Grotius Society, p. 147.
13 Parry: The Spanish Theory of Empire in the 16th Century. p. 45.
14 Parry: op. cit p. 24, note 1.
15V Nuremberg Indictment cmd. 6696/45, p. 5.
16 See K. Bramstedt: Dictatorship and Political Police. 17 J. B. Scott, op. cit. cxviii—cxix.
18 Cmd. 6668/45.
19 J. B. Scott, op. cit. Vitori* De Bello cxix.
20 Cmd. 6418/48.
21 J. B. Scott, op. cit. Vitoria, De Bello cxxi.
22 ibid. p. cxxv.
23 ibid. p. cxxiv.
24 ibid. cxxiy.
25 Cmd. 6668/46, p. 6.
26 Times Newspaper, 22nd July, 1946. Address to the British Association.
27 Brierly: Law of Nations. 2nd ed,. p. 261.
28 J B. Scott. Vitoria de Bello, op. cit. cxzx.
29 Cmd. 6666. p. 22.
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