Little-known pages of the history of the development of international legal thought: Ludwig Jacob (1759–1827)

This article explores the contribution to the development of international law science by the outstanding German philosopher and economist Ludwig Kondratievich Jacob (Ludwig Heinrich von Jacob) (1759–1827), who for some time worked as a professor of diplomacy and political economy at Kharkiv University. L. Jacob's contribution to the development of the science of international law is not limited to reading lectures on positive international law, which was taught at the Department of Diplomacy and Political Economy in the first decades of Kharkiv University. L. K. Jacob prepared and published a series of textbooks on logic, grammar, psychology, aesthetics, rhetoric, political economy and law under the general title «Philosophy Course for High Schools of the Russian Empire», the seventh part of which was devoted to the problems of natural law, including international law. International Law Jacob interpreted it as part of natural law, which determines relations between independent states. Among the fundamental rights of the nation he distinguishes: 1) the right to independence, which includes the right to take possession of things that did not belong to anyone (it is clear that the author here justifies the right to take over the so-called res nullius, which was widely used in international law at the time, 2) the right to independence from any other nation; 3) the right to formal equality with any other nation. Considerable attention in his textbook L. K. Jakob attributes the right to international treaties, though he sees no distinction between treaties that nation conclude with other nations and with foreign individuals. Some emphasis is also placed on diplomatic law in the textbook. In the work of L. К. Jakob quite comprehensive doctrine of the right to war, which, again, is quite typical for proponents of natural law in the science of international law, is based on the identification of relations between independent nations (states) with relations between individuals in the natural state. His international legal doctrine is literally imbued with the ideas of the humanization of war – he strongly opposes treachery and the use of such means of war, which cause the enemy extreme pain, requires respect for the rights of prisoners of war.On the last pages of his textbook L. K. Jacob is installing an application in which he proposes the idea of uniting the independent states into a confederation, provided that each of them maintains complete independence in their internal affairs. In this project it is easy to see the impact of the ideas of the treatise «To Eternal Peace» by I. Kant, a consistent follower of the philosophical doctrine of which L. K. Jacob performed in his philosophical writings.