The great eighteenth-century theorist of internationallaw Emer de Vattel (17141767) was a keyfigure in sustaining the practical and theoreticalinfluence of natural jurisprudence through theRevolutionary and Napoleonic eras. Coming towardthe end of the period when the discourse of naturallaw was dominant in European political theory,Vattels contribution is cited as a major source ofcontemporary wisdom on questions of internationallaw in the American Revolution and even by opponentsof revolution, such as Cardinal Consalvi, at theCongress of Vienna of 1815.Vattel broadly accepted the early-modern naturallaw theorists from Grotius onward but placed himselfin the tradition of Leibniz and Christian Wolff. Thisbecomes particularly clear in two valuable early essaysthat have never before been translated and areincluded in the present volume. On this philosophicalbasis he established what the proper relationshipshould be between natural law as it is applied toindividuals and natural law as it is applied to states.The significance of The Law of Nations residesin its distillation from natural law of an apt model forinternational conduct of state affairs that carriedconviction in both the Old Regime and the newpolitical order of 17891815.The Liberty Fund edition is based on theanonymous English translation of 1797, whichincludes Vattels notes for the second French edition(posthumous, 1773).Emer de Vattel (17141767)was a Swiss philosopher and jurist inthe service of Saxony.Bla Kapossy is Professeur Supplant of History at the University of Lausanne.Richard Whatmore is a Reader in Intellectual History at the University of Sussex.Knud Haakonssen is Professor of Intellectual History at the University of Sussex, England.