The Return of Franciscus de Vitoria

In the month of June, 1946, the fourth centenary of Franciscus de Vitoria was celebrated at Salamanca before a concourse of theologians and lawyers and scholars from all parts of the world.Relatively speaking, one imagines that the name of Franciscus de Vitoria means more to the world today than it did at the date of his first or his second or his third centenary. In these last years, men of many lands, one may say men of all the lands, have come to acknowledge the debt that international law owes to him as its first founder. Years ago Holland, the birthplace of Grotius, made handsome acknowledgment; as France has done, and Italy too; and all the Americas. On 23rd December, 1933, the Seventh International Conference of American States, passed a resolution ‘that a bust of the Spanish theologian, Francisco de Vitoria, be placed in the headquarters of the Pap-Ameriean Union in Washington, as a tribute to the Professor of Salamanca, who, in the 16th century, established the foundations of modern International Law’.In Boswell’s Life of Johnson, the good Doctor is said to have spoken with great emotion these words: ‘I love the University of Salamanca ; for when the Spaniards were in doubt as to the lawfulness of their conquering America, the University of Salamanca gave it as their opinion that it was not lawful’. At the celebrations of 1946, in Salamanca, Dr Brierly the distinguished professor of International Law of the University of Oxford attended. His acknowledgment, and the acknowledgment of Dr Johnson, go not only for Oxford but also for England.