ABSTRACT
Global authority as a concept is a prismatic notion reflecting at times different historical, contextual, and political-ideological conceptions of power and the world. This chapter presents a research hypothesis considering how the notion of world authority underwent across time different transformations shaping the definition of the legitimacy conditions of natural law as well as of the idea of a modern ius gentium. De Vitoria not only assumed a global perspective for the ultimate justification of the law, but he also claimed that this was enforceable law. The double roots of the global order as based on the combination of natural law and positive ius gentium defined the premises for the construction of a system of global law which followed from the right “of natural partnership and communication”. Once a notion of global authority on the Earth attributed to either the Pope or the king was excluded, it became all important to excavate de Vitoria’s characterization of domestic power and authority.
