ABSTRACT
The most considered statements on the rights and wrongs of war proceeded from the jurists. Baron Charles de Montesquieu (Lettres Persanes, Paris, 1721) sought to equate the condition of warfare with civil law, and he made a declaration of hostilities the equivalent of passing a sentence of death on a criminal; the corollary was that the offending state, like the malefactor, must be considered deserving of such drastic punishment. Christian Wolff (Institutiones Juris Naturae et Gentium, 1750) looked more to the principles of natural law, and allowed states a greater measure of freedom. However the most readable and the most generally admirable product of our period was by the Swiss jurist Emerich de Vattel (Droit des Gens, ou Principes de la Loi Naturelle Appliqués à la Conduite et aux Affaires des Nations et des Souveraines, 1758). Vattel not only synthesised the views of earlier writers on the subject, but in Book Three he spoke with the authentic voice of the Age of Reason concerning the ways in which war ought to be conducted. Women, children, old people and private property were to be considered inviolable, and even a just war was to be waged with as much humanity as was compatible with attaining the object.
