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Orakhelashvili, Alexander --- "The Origins of Consensual Positivism – Pufendorf, Wolff and Vattel" [2011] ELECD 573; in Orakhelashvili, Alexander (ed), "Research Handbook on the Theory and History of International Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2011)

Book Title: Research Handbook on the Theory and History of International Law

Editor(s): Orakhelashvili, Alexander

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781848443549

Section: Chapter 4

Section Title: The Origins of Consensual Positivism – Pufendorf, Wolff and Vattel

Author(s): Orakhelashvili, Alexander

Number of pages: 18

Extract:

4 The origins of consensual positivism ­ Pufendorf,
Wolff and Vattel
Alexander Orakhelashvili


4.1 THE RELEVANCE OF PUFENDORF, WOLFF AND VATTEL

This chapter will focus on three major thinkers to whose scholarly contribution consen-
sual positivism as a doctrine owes its existence: Samuel Pufendorf (1632­1694), Christian
Wolff (1679­1754) and Emer de Vattel (1714­1767). It was the discourse led by these
authors, in the context of which the crucial relevance of the consensual imperative for
international law became obvious, much as not all of them can be described as consensual
positivists proper. It is intended here to focus on principal points of analysis these authors
made in relation to nature, sources and operation of international law; to demonstrate
the influence of these authors on the current state of the international legal system and
try to delimit, in relation to their doctrines, the doctrinal postulation of particular legal
principles from the discernment of the actual state and essence of international law.
Pufendorf, Wolff and Vattel conducted their scholarly analysis in the context where
Hugo Grotius had already made his major contributions to the scholarship of interna-
tional law. As explained, Grotius secularised natural law by divorcing it from moral
theology and placing it on a secular basis.1 Pufendorf, it is said, was to Grotius what the
system-raiser is to the inventor.2 It is also suggested that Vattel was arguably the first man
to join in a single system the concepts of natural society of nations and ...