THE CLASSICS OF INTERNATIONAL LAW EDITED BY JAMES BROWN SCOTT Member of the Institute of International Law President of the American Institute of International Law FRANCISCI DE VICTORIA DE INDIS ET DE IVRE BELLI RELECTIONES EDITED BY ERNEST NYS Honorary Doctor, Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Oxford Member of the Institute of International Law Member of the International Court of Arbritation at The Hague Reprinted 1964 OCEANA PUBLICATIONS INC. WILDY & SONS LTD. NEW YORK, U. S. A. LONDON. PREFACE. The Carnegie Institution of Washington has undertaken the republication of the leading classics of International Law and the present volume, containing the sections De Indis and De Jure Belli extracted from Victoria's posthumous work entitled Relectiones Theologicae, and published for the first time in 1557, is edited with an introduction by the distinguished Belgian publicist, Professor Ernest Nys. The English translation of the introduction and of the text of Victoria have been made by Mr. John Pawley Bate. Inasmuch as the various editions of Victoria's writings, including the portion of them dealing with international law, are faulty, it was thought advisable to prepare a revised and critical edition of the text of the two Relectiones. The work was entrusted to Dr. Herbert Francis Wright, Instructor in Latin in the Catholic University of America, whose edition of the sections entitled De Indis and De Jure Belli appears in the present volume. The reasons for including Victoria's tractates are sufficiently set forth by Professor Nys in his introduction, and yet the general editor is unwilling to allow the volume to go to press without a tribute in passing to the broad-minded and generous-hearted Dominican, justly regarded as one of the founders of International Law, and whose two tractates here reproduced are, as Thucydides would say, a perpetual possession to the international lawyer. Victoria's claim as a founder of the Law of Nations must unfortunately be based upon these two readings taken down by a pupil and published after his death, without the professor's revision and in a very summary form. They are sufficient, however, to show that International Law is not a thing of our day and generation or of the Hague Conferences, nor indeed the creation of Grotius, but that the system is almost as old as the New World. One reason for undertaking the reprinting of the classics of International Law is the difficulty of procuring the texts in convenient form for scientific study; the libraries in the United States have been searched with the result that few of the earlier works were to be found. Another reason is that some of the works selected for republication have never been translated into English. The American publicist is therefore at a disadvantage in consulting works of admitted authority, and when found they are, as it were, sealed books to all but trained Latinists. The specialist is thus forced to rely upon summary statements and references to them to be found in treatises on International Law, or is driven to examine them in European libraries, often a difficult task, while the general reader is practically barred from the stores of knowledge locked up in earlier works on the Law of Nations. The same difficulty exists in Latin America, Japan, and in a lesser degree in many European countries. Eminent publicists, European and American, who have been consulted as to the usefulness of the plan to republish the Classics, have endorsed the project and have pledged their personal cooperation. The works to be included in the series have not only been approved but suggested by them, so that the undertaking is international in scope, in selection, and in execution. The underlying principle of selection has been to reissue those works which can be said to have contributed either to the origin or to the growth of International Law and the term classic has been used in the broad rather than in the narrow sense, so that no work will be omitted which can be said to have contributed to the origin or growth of the Law of Nations. The masterpieces of Grotius will naturally be the central point in the series, but the works of his leading predecessors and successors will likewise be included. The text of each author will be reproduced photographically, so as to lay the source before the reader without the mistakes which might creep into a newly printed text. In the case of the early authors the photographed text will be accompanied by a revised text whenever that course shall seem desirable. An Introduction will be prefixed to each work, giving the necessary biographical details and stating the importance of the text and its place in International Law; tables of errata will be added, and notes deemed necessary to clear up doubts and ambiguities or to correct mistakes in the text will be supplied. Variations in successive editions of the text published in the author's lifetime will be noted, but little or nothing in the nature of historical commentary will be furnished. Each work will be accompanied by an English version made expressly for the series by a competent translator. It is hoped that the series will enable general readers as well as specialists to trace International Law from its faint and unconscious beginnings to its present ample proportions and to forecast with some degree of certainty its future development into that law which Mirabeau tells us will one day rule the world. JAMES BROWN SCOTT, General Editor. WASHINGTON, February 19, 1917. NOTE PAGES 9 TO 53 HAVE NOT BEEN REPRODUCED AS IT IS A TRANSLATION OF THE FOLLOWING INTRODUCTION INTO FRENCH