Alberico Gentili

This chapter argues that the theory of international law offered by Alberico Gentili is marked by a delicate, if not confusing, combination of the two principles of equal and unrestrained sovereignty of states, on the one hand, and of an international legal integration grounded on natural law, on the other. It suggests that Gentili does not provide the conceptual resources to establish—as a necessary component of international law’s procedures, or at least as an aim—a forum to prevent the law from only ever working to the benefit of the powerful. There is no conceptual, let alone institutional, room for public (in the sense of universal) deliberation of all parties on equal standing so that the affected parties—rather than some authority with either a particularistic pedigree or with more universal, but shaky legitimacy—could agree on common interpretations of the law.