Conflicting Lineages of IL Final Author Version 2016.pdf (546.88 kB)
Conflicting lineages of international law: Cicero, Hugo Grotius and Adam Smith on global property relations
This essay presents an interpretation of the juridical thought of Cicero, Hugo Grotius and Adam Smith. Focussing upon questions of property, capital accumulation and violence, the essay traces a tension within their writings between a social ethic of human fellowship and compassion, and, a theory of the utility of ‘unsocial’ commercial self-interest. This tension forms a key problem for the tradition of liberal international law. For Grotius and Smith one response to this tension is to attempt to reign in capitalist markets by asserting a range of moral duties to individuals and to the nation-state. The importance of stressing such an interpretation is to reject the flattening-out of the liberal political and juridical tradition by contemporary neoliberal thought, and to reclaim a number of ways of thinking about the global economy and international law in which moral action and political intervention are understood as playing a necessary and essential role.
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Publication status
- Published
File Version
- Accepted version
Journal
JurisprudenceISSN
2040-3313Publisher
Taylor and FrancisExternal DOI
Issue
2Volume
8Page range
257-286Department affiliated with
- Law Publications
Full text available
- Yes
Peer reviewed?
- Yes
Legacy Posted Date
2016-08-16First Open Access (FOA) Date
2018-02-13First Compliant Deposit (FCD) Date
2016-08-15Usage metrics
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