PP983
Analítico de Periódico
FOCARELLI, Carlo
Jus Gentium in Alberico Gentili : a call for prudence and the common sense of humanity / Carlo Focarelli
Rivista di Diritto Internazionale, v.100 n.2 (2017), p.329-355
DIREITO INTERNACIONAL PÚBLICO
An analysis of Alberico Gentili’s ideas about jus gentium shows that, while certainly not writing the first treatise on international law as we know it, he broke new ground in conceiving of jus gentium as a set of rules apt to work in practice and help ensure the living together of their addressees taken as a whole, particularly sovereigns. Ultimately, the individual rules of Gentili’s jus gentium were deemed to work to the extent that they optimised a number of different demands, namely certainty, reciprocity, expediency, necessity and justice; and were inspired – on the basis of precedents, authorities and self-evidence – by both “wise” prudence and natural law as an elementary common sense of humanity.