Christian Wolff

This chapter explores Christian Wolff’s systematic method and how it resonated in later scholarship. Wolff considered his systematic method to be his original contribution to the study of international law. Yet, despite the fact that he was a very renowned scholar in his time, this systematic method apparently remained an episode in international legal thought. Three transitions in international legal thought are already discernible, but not explicit, in Wolff’s writings: a process of an autonomization of international law, a shift from natural law to positivism, and a shifting focus from law to political economy. In a paradoxical manner, Wolff’s specific approach to the study of international law and his scientific method contributed to these transitions in international legal thought and, at the same time, hid them behind ambiguity. Arguably, this ambiguity contributes to explaining limited resonance of Wolff’s writings on international law.