The Citizen’s Right to Leave His Country: The Concept of Exile in Vattel’s Droit des gens

Carrera, Alberto

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-23838-4_4

Alberto Carrera³

Abstract

Based on his combined perspective of natural law and the law of nations, Vattel approached the concept of exile with regard to two specific aspects: the right to leave the country and the right to live somewhere to provide one’s own subsistence. What political rights, and vice versa what duties, did a citizen have to leave his country and what natural rights did any individual have to do so? Uniting these two dimensions into one single legal architecture, Vattel intervened in the international political, military and social debates of the period of the Seven Years’ War and provide answers to questions about rights, duties and responsibilities that were raised by conflict, territorial occupations and population displacement. Finally, deploying the same dual perspective, Vattel distinguished between the general necessary duties of a state to provide asylum to exiles and the imperfect duties that any state had to do so given specific limiting conditions.

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Notes

1.
For these discourses, Antonio Padoa Schioppa, Storia del diritto in Europa. Dal medioevo all’età contemporanea (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2016); Paolo Grossi, L’Europa del diritto (Rome-Bari: Laterza, 2016), Mario Caravale, Storia del diritto nell’Europa moderna e contemporanea (Rome-Bari: Laterza, 2012); and Adriano Cavanna, Storia del diritto moderno in Europa. Le fonti e il pensiero giuridico (Milan: Giuffré, 2005), vol. II. On modern legal culture Giovanni Tarello, Storia della cultura giuridica moderna. Assolutismo e codificazione del diritto (Bologna: il Mulino 1976); Italo Birocchi, Alla ricerca dell’ordine: fonti e cultura giuridica nell’età moderna (Turin: G. Giappichelli, 2002); and Michel Villey, La formazione del pensiero giuridico moderno (Milan: Jaca Book, 1986). On exile, Ai margini della civitas. Figure giuridiche dell’altro tra medioevo e futuro, ed. Aldo Andrea Cassi (Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino, 2011); Giuliano Crifò, “Esilio e cittadinanza”, Estudios jurídicos en homenaje al profesor Alejandro Guzmán Brito, ed. Patricio-Ignacio Carvajal and Massimo Miglietta (Alessandria: Edizioni dell’Orso, 2011), vol. 2, 127–136; “Esilio (Storia)”, Enciclopedia del diritto (1966), vol. 15, 712–722; Paul Tabori, The Anatomy of Exile: A Semantic and Historical Study (London: Harrap, 1972); Escludere per governare. L’esilio politico fra Medioevo e Risorgimento, ed. Fabio Di Giannatale (Florence: Le Monnier, 2011); and Matteo Sanfilippo, “Gli esuli di antico regime”, Storia d’Italia, Annali, n. 24, Migrazioni, ed. Paola Corti and Matteo Sanfilippo (Turin: Einaudi, 2009), 143–160. See also Giorgio Agamben, “Politica dell’esilio”, Derive approdi 16 (1998), 25–27 and for the Italian historical context between medieval and modern times, Exile et civilisation en Italie (XIIe–XVIe siècles), ed. Jacques Heers and Christian Bec (Nancy: Presses Universitaires de Nancy, 1990); Jacques Heers, L’esilio, la vita politica, la società nel Medioevo (Naples: Liguori 1997); and Randolph Starn, Contrary Commonwealth. The Theme of Exile in Medieval and Renaissance Italy (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1982).
2.
Early Modern Natural Law Theories: Context And Strategies in the Early Enlightenment, ed. Tim Hochstrasser and Peter Schröder (Dordrecht: Springer, 2003). On the genesis of Vattel’s treatise, André Bandelier, “De Berlin à Neuchâtel: La genèse du Droit des gens d’Emer de Vattel”, Schweizer im Berlin des 18. Jahrhunderts, ed. Martin Fontius and Helmut Holzhey (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1996), 45–56. On its impact, Réflexions sur l’impact, le rayonnement et l’actualitè de: “Le Droit des gens, ou Principes de la loi naturelle appliqués à la conduit et aux affaires des Nations et des Souverains”. A l’occasion du 250° anniversaire da sa puration, ed. Yves Sandoz (Brussels: Bruylant, 2010); Francis Stephen Ruddy, International Law in the Enlightenment: The Background of Emmerich de Vattel’s Le Droit des gens (Dobbs Ferry, NY: Oceana Publications, 1975); “The Acceptance of Vattel”, Grotian Society Papers, ed. Charles Henry Alexandrowicz (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1972), 177–196. For the present study the following edition was used: Emer De Vattel, Le droit des gens. Ou Principes de la loi naturelle appliques a la conduite & aux affaires des nations & des souverains (London: 1758). Quotations are taken from Emer de Vattel, The Law of Nations, or, Principles of the Law of Nature, Applied to the Conduct and Affairs of Nations and Sovereigns, with Three Early Essays on the Origin and Nature of Natural Law and on Luxury, ed. and Intro. Béla Kapossy and Richard Whatmore (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2008). References are to the book and paragraph numbers.
3.
Francesco Mancuso, Diritto, stato, sovranità: il pensiero politico-giuridico di Emer De Vattel tra assolutismo e rivoluzione (Naples: Edizioni scientifiche italiane, 2002); “Effettività e legittimità nel Droit des gens di Vattel”, Dimensioni dell’effettività. Tra teoria generale e politica del diritto. Atti del convegno, Salerno, 2–4 ottobre 2003, ed. Alfonso Catania (Milan: Giuffrè, 2005), 415–426; and “Le Droit des gens come apice dello jus pubblicum europeum? Nemico, guerra, legittimità nel pensiero di Emer de Vattel”, Quaderni Fiorentini per la storia del pensiero giuridico moderno 38 (2009), 1277–1310. See also Emmanuelle Jouannet, “Emer de Vattel (1714–1767)”, The Oxford Handbook of the History of International Law, ed. Bardo Fassbender, Anne Peters, Simone Peter, and Daniel Högger (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 1118–1121; “Les dualismes du Droit des gens”, Vattel’s International Law in a XXIst Century Perspective. Le droit international de Vattel vu du XXIe siècle, ed. Vincent Chetail and Peter Haggenmacher (Leiden and Boston: Martinus Nijhoff, 2011), 133–150; Emer de Vattel et l’émergence doctrinale du droit international classique (Paris: Pedone, 1998); Andrew Hurrell, “Vattel: Pluralism and Its Limits”, Classical Theories of International Relations, ed. Ian Clark and Iver Neumann (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1996), 233–255; Johannes J. Manz, Emer de Vattel, Versuch einer Würdigung (Zürich: Schulthess, 1971). On sovereignty in Vattel, Stephan Beaulac, “Emer de Vattel and the Externalization of Sovereignty”, Journal of International Law 5 (2003), 237–292; Heber Arbuet-Vignali, “La idea de soberanía en Vattel”, Revista de la Facultad de Derecho 18 (2000), 165–198; Emmanuelle Jouannet, “Vattel et la sujéction directe de l’état au droit international”, L’État moderne: regards sur la pensée politique de l’Europe occidentale entre 1715 et 1848, ed. Simone Goyard-Fabre (Paris: Librairie philosophique J. Vrin, 2000), 153–179; and Horatia Muir Watt, “Droit naturel et souveraineté de l’Etat dans la doctrine de Vattel”, Archives de philosophie du Droit 32 (1987), 71–85.
4.
For a more in-depth analysis, Tetsuya Toyoda, Theory and Politics of the Law of Nations: Political Bias in International Law Discourse of Seven German Court Councilors in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (Leiden and Boston: Martinus Nijhoff, 2011); “La doctrine vatteliene de l’égalité souveraine dans le contexte neuchâtelois”, Journal of the History of International Law 11 (2009), 103–124.
5.
Dalla civitas maxima al totus orbis. Diritto comune europeo e ordo iuris globale tra età moderna e contemporanea, ed. Aldo Andrea Cassi and Alberto Sciumé (Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino, 2007); Aldo Andrea Cassi, “Lo ius in bello nella dottrina giusinternazionalista moderna. Annotazioni di metodo e itinerari d’indagine”, Quaderni Fiorentini per la storia del pensiero giuridico moderno 38 (2009), 1141–1168; and “Dalla santità alla criminalità della guerra. Morfologie storico-giuridiche del bellum iustum”, Seminari di Storia e di Diritto. III. ‘Guerra giusta’? Le metamorfosi di un concetto antico, ed. Antonello Calore (Milan: Giuffrè editore, 2003), 101–158. See also Isaac Nakhimovsky, “Vattel’s Theory of the International Order: Commerce and the Balance of Power in the Law of Nations”, History of European Ideas 33 (2007), 157–173; Peter Haggenmacher, “L’État souverain comme sujet du droit international, de Vitoria à Vattel”, Droits: revue franҫaise de théorie juridique 16 (1992), 11–20; Frederick G. Whelan, “Vattel’s Doctrine of the State”, History of Political Thought 9 (1988), 59–90; and Simone Zurbuchen, “Vattel’s ‘Law of Nations’ and the Principle of Non-intervention”, Grotiana 31 (2010), 69–84.
6.
Padoa Schioppa, Storia del diritto in Europa, 373.
7.
In particular Simone Zurbuchen, “Vattel’s Law of Nations and Just War Theory”, History of European Ideas 35 (2009), 408–417; “Die schweizerische Debatte über die Leibniz-Wolffsche Philosophie und ihre Bedeutung für Emer von Vattels philosophischen Werdegang”, Reconceptualizing Nature, Science, and Aesthetics. Contribution à une nouvelle approche des Lumières helvétiques, ed. Patrick Coleman, Anne Hofmann, and Simone Zurbuchen (Geneva: Slatkine, 1998), 91–113. For a detailed historical-juridical focus on the speculative systems related to warfare, Aldo Andrea Cassi, Santa Giusta Umanitaria. La guerra nella civiltà occidentale (Roma: Salerno Editrice, 2015) and “Diritto e guerra nell’esperienza giuridica europea tra medioevo ed età contemporanea”, Il diritto come forza. La forza del diritto. Le fonti in azione nel diritto europeo tra medioevo ed età contemporanea, ed. Alberto Sciumè (Turin: Giappichelli, 2012). On natural law in connection to war in Vattel, Edgardo Rodríguez Gómez, “El jusnaturalismo y la guerra en el pensamiento de Jean-Jacques Burlamaqui y Emer de Vattel en el siglo XVIII”, Revista telemática de filosofía del derecho 11 (2007–2008); Gabriella Silvestrini, “Vattel, Rousseau et la question de la ‘justice’ de la guerre”, Vattel’s International Law in a XXIst Century Perspective, 101–129.
8.
Vattel addresses the issue of abandonment of the country and of exile in the first book (titled “Of Nations Considered in Themselves”), par. 220–233.
9.
Vattel, Droit des gens, book I, par. 220.
10.
Vattel, Droit des gens, book II, par. 125.
11.
Vattel, Droit des gens, book I, par. 220.
12.
Vattel, Droit des gens, book I, par. 220.
13.
Vattel, Droit des gens, book I, pars. 223, 225.
14.
Vattel, Droit des gens, book I, par. 223. On passive resistance towards sovereign laws Alberto Carrera, “Il diritto di resistenza nella dottrina giuridica di Emer de Vattel”, Il diritto come forza, la forza del diritto. Le fonti in azione nel diritto europeo tra Medioevo ed età contemporanea, ed. Alberto Sciumè (Turin: Giappichelli, 2012), 81–109.
15.
On the concept of banishment within the common law system, see—also for its rich bibliography—the dense essay by Aldo Andrea Cassi, “Il ‘segno di Caino’ e i ‘figliuoli di Bruto’. I banditi nella (dalla) civitas dell’Italia comunale e signorile tra prassi statutaria e scientia juris”, Ai margini della civitas. Figure giuridiche dell’altro tra medioevo e futuro, ed. Aldo Andrea Cassi (Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino, 2011), 79–104. With regard to the Italian municipal reality, Giuliano Milani, “Banditi, malesardi e ribelli. L’evoluzione del nemico pubblico nell’Italia comunale (secoli XII–XIV)”, Quaderni Fiorentini per la storia del pensiero giuridico moderno 38 (2009), 109–140. See also Mario Ascheri, “Il bando tra crimine e criminalità”, Diritto medievale e moderno. Problemi del processo della cultura e delle fonti giuridiche, ed. Mario Ascheri (Rimini: Maggioli, 1991), 319–323. Still fundamental are Desiderio Cavalca, Il bando nella prassi e nella dottrina giuridica medievale (Milan: A. Giuffrè, 1978); Carlo Ghisalberti, “La condanna al bando nel diritto comunale”, Archivio Giuridico 158 (1960), 3–75.
16.
Vattel, Droit des gens, book I, par. 228.
17.
Vattel, Droit des gens, book I, par. 229.
18.
Vattel, Droit des gens, book I, par. 230.
19.
Vattel, Droit des gens, book I, par. 231.
20.
Vattel, Droit des gens, book I, par. 231.
21.
Vattel, Droit des gens, book I, par. 220.
22.
Vattel, Droit des gens, book I, par. 220.
23.
For an internationalist perspective, Peter Pavel Remec, The Position of the Individual in International Law: According to Grotius and Vattel (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1960).
24.
Vattel, Droit des gens, book I, par. 220.
25.
Vattel, Droit des gens, book I, par. 220.
26.
Vattel, Droit des gens, book I, par. 220.
27.
Vattel, Droit des gens, book I, par. 220.
28.
Vattel, Droit des gens, book I, par. 220.
29.
Vattel, Droit des gens, book I, par. 220.
30.
Vattel, Droit des gens, book I, par. 220.
31.
Vattel, Droit des gens, book I, par. 221.
32.
Vattel, Droit des gens, book I, par. 222.
33.
Vattel, Droit des gens, book I, par. 222.
34.
Vattel, Droit des gens, book I, par. 222.
35.
Vattel, Droit des gens, book I, par. 222.
36.
Vattel, Droit des gens, book I, par. 222.
37.
Vattel, Droit des gens, book I, par. 223.
38.
Vattel, Droit des gens, book I, par. 223.
39.
Vattel, Droit des gens, book I, par. 223.
40.
Vattel, Droit des gens, book I, par. 223.
41.
Vattel, Droit des gens, book I, par. 223.
42.
Vattel, Droit des gens, book I, par. 223.
43.
Vattel, Droit des gens, book I, par. 224.
44.
Vattel, Droit des gens, book I, par. 225.
45.
For Vattel, the “fundamental laws” constitute the bases of the “constitution of the state ” and had important consequences for the right of resistance. When the sovereign transgressed the inviolable fundamental laws, the prince “commands without any right” and governed without title “sine titulo”: “the nation is not obliged to obey him, but may resist his unjust attempts”. Once the prince “attacks the constitution of the state , he breaks the contract which bound the people to him: the people become free by the act of sovereign, and can no longer view him but as an usurper who would load them with oppression”, Vattel, Droit des gens, book I, par. 51. This crucial passage revolved around two Vattelian conceptual binomials: Constitution/Nation and fundamental laws/political laws. The Constitution was formed by the union of “political laws” and “fundamental laws”: the first were “made directly with a view to the public welfare”, the second concerned “the body itself and the being of the society”, Vattel, Droit des gens, book I, par. 29.
46.
Vattel, Droit des gens, book I, par. 225.
47.
Vattel, Droit des gens, book I, par. 225.
48.
Vattel, Droit des gens, book I, par. 225.
49.
Vattel, Droit des gens, book I, par. 225.
50.
Vattel, Droit des gens, book I, par. 227.
51.
Vattel, Droit des gens, book I, par. 228.
52.
Vattel, Droit des gens, book I, par. 228.
53.
Vattel, Droit des gens, book I, par. 228.
54.
Vattel, Droit des gens, book I, par. 229.
55.
Vattel, Droit des gens, book I, par. 229.
56.
Vattel, Droit des gens, book I, par. 230.
57.
Vattel, Droit des gens, book I, par. 230.
58.
Vattel, Droit des gens, book I, par. 230.
59.
Vattel, Droit des gens, book I, par. 231. Giulio Vismara, “Asilo (diritto di) (Diritto intermedio)”, Enciclopedia del diritto (1958), vol. 3, 198–202; Carlotta Latini, Il privilegio dell’immunità: diritto d’asilo e giurisdizione nell’ordine giuridico dell’età moderna (Milan: Giuffrè, 2002); Fabrizio Mastromartino, Il diritto di asilo: teoria e storia di un istituto giuridico controverso (Turin: Giappichelli, 2012); “Percorsi dell’asilo cristiano. Origine, affermazione e crisi di un istituto giuridico controverso”, L’Acropoli 11 (2010), 593–612; “L’asilo nella società e nella cultura greco-antica”, L’Acropoli 10 (2009), 173–184; Manuel R. Garcia-Mora, International Law and Asylum as a Human Right (Washington: Public Affairs Press, 1956); and Atle Grahi-Madsen, The Status of Refugees in International Law (Leiden: Sijthoff, 1972), vol. II. See also Phil Orchard, A Right to Flee. Refugees, States and the Construction of International Cooperation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014).
60.
Vattel, Droit des gens, book I, par. 231.
61.
Vattel, Droit des gens, book I, par. 231.
62.
Vattel, Droit des gens, book I, par. 231.
63.
Vattel, Droit des gens, book I, par. 232.
64.
Vattel, Droit des gens, book I, par. 232.
65.
Vattel, Droit des gens, book I, par. 233.
66.
Vattel, Droit des gens, book I, par. 233. Fundamental in this regard are Walter Rech, Enemies of Mankind. Vattel’s Theory of Collective Security (Leiden and Boston: Nijhoff, 2013); Gabriella Silvestrini, “Giustizia della guerra e disuguaglianza: Vattel, l’aggressore ingiusto e il nemico del genere umano”, Filosofia politica 22 (2008), 381–401; and “Diritti naturali e diritto di uccidere. Teorie moderne della guerra fra modelli teorici e tradizioni di pensiero”, Filosofia politica 21 (2007), 425–452.
67.
Vattel, Droit des gens, book I, par. 233.

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University of Brescia, Italy
Alberto Carrera

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Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Koen Stapelbroek
Ca’ Foscari University Venice, Italy
Antonio Trampus

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Carrera, A. (2019). The Citizen’s Right to Leave His Country: The Concept of Exile in Vattel’s Droit des gens. In: Stapelbroek, K., Trampus, A. (eds) The Legacy of Vattel's Droit des gens. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-23838-4_4

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-23838-4_4
Published: 14 August 2019
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