Codex Juris: Ius Gentium

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Ius Gentium

The law that natural reason has established among all men and which is equally observed among all nations is called the law of nations, as being the law that all nations use. Although this phrase in Roman law had a meaning law of nations, its scope was much wider than the modern concept of international law. It was originally a system of law, or more properly, equity, gathered by early Roman lawyers and magistrates from the common ingredients in the customs of the old Italian tribes, those being the nations, gentes, whom they had opportunities of observing to be used in cases where the ius civile did not apply; that is, in cases between foreigners, or between a Roman citizen and a foreigner. The principle upon which they proceeded was that any rule of law common to all the nations they knew of must be intrinsically consonant to right reason, and therefore fundamentally valid and just. From this it was an easy transition to the converse principle, that any rule that instinctively commended itself to their sense of justice and reason must be a part of the ius gentium. So the latter term eventually became synonymous with equity (as the Romans understood it) or the system of praetorian law. In early Roman law, it was used more specifically to describe the international law that governed Rome’s relationship with other states. Over time, the term would be employed more narrowly to represent the law that applied among foreigners, and among Romans and foreigners.

Reserved

There is currently no legislation on this topic.