Even if Foucault was generally disposed to avoid the category of sovereignty in his genealogy of governmentality, his lectures on the subject nevertheless have much to offer for our understanding of the historical tradition of international legal thought. The purpose of this article is to try to situate Christian Wolff's account of the jus gentium within Foucault's work, focusing in particular upon the way in which Wolff might be seen to exemplify elements of the transition identified by Foucault from government according to raison d'état to a new art of government informed by the emergence of political economy. This, it is argued, not only makes legible certain elements of Wolff's work that have otherwise remained obscure, but points also to the place of international law in the fine-grained materiality of everyday life.
