Emer de Vattel

Emer ( I ) de Vattel ( born April 25, 1714 Couvet, † December 28, 1767 in Neuchâtel ) was a Swiss naturalist and international lawyers and representatives of the Western Swiss Natural Law School ( Ecole du droit naturel Romande ). He was a pupil of Jean -Jacques Burlamaqui. Vattel is known mainly for its numerous legal-philosophical writings that shape the understanding of present-day international law today.

• 2.1 Diplomatic activities
• 2.2 Test

Life

Family

Vattel was born in 1714 in Couvet in the then still belonging to Prussia Principality of Neuchâtel, the son of Protestant pastor David de Vattel and his wife Marie de Mont Mollin. He was one of nine children. His father was raised as a supporter of Frederick I of this to the peerage. His mother came from a highly respected family in the Principality of Neuchâtel. So Vattel maternal uncle Emmer de Montmollin of Frederick I to Chancelier d'Etat was appointed and entrusted with various diplomatic missions. Vattel 1764 married Marie- Anne de Chene, with whom he had a son on January 30, 1765.

Training

After his father accepted a pastorate in Saint- Aubin- Sauges, the young Vattel initially received home schooling. At the age of 17, he passed the entrance examination for the study of theology in Basel. After the death of his father he moved to the University of Geneva to deal there with the work of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and Christian Wolff and listen to the lectures of Jean -Jacques Burlamaqui. As part of this, Vattel turned increasingly to questions of law, and developed an interest in natural and international law.

Work

Diplomatic activities

Due to the family imprint of his father and the maternal uncle Vattel sought a job at the diplomatic service. In 1742 he traveled to Berlin to ask for Frederick II for an appropriate job. During his time in Berlin, Vattel tried several times to the establishment of a university in Neuchâtel. This leaning Frederick II, however, from always. Because of this also the desire Vattel did not comply with a diplomatic appointment, he traveled in 1743, at the invitation of Heinrich von Brühl, to the court of Augustus III. after Dresden. This sent him in 1747 as resident minister to Bern. Since this activity was associated with little work, he spent much time in his home town of Neuchâtel and wrote most of his best-known work Droit des gens, ou principes de la loi naturelle appliqués à la conduite et aux affaires des nations et des souverains. 1760 Vattel left Switzerland and traveled via Warsaw and Prague back in the Saxon capital of Dresden, where he was assigned as a privy councilor with foreign affairs. In contrast to his previous position of this work was extremely time-consuming and demanded the utmost from Vattel health. He died at the age of only 53 years in 1767 during a trip to his native Neuchâtel.

Work

Vattel was known by various legal-philosophical writings. So he wrote an early age the treatise Defense systems leibnitien you to defend the established by Leibniz approaches against the criticism of Jean Pierre de Crousaz. Above all, his main work Droit des gens, ou principes de la loi naturelle appliqués à la conduite et aux affaires des nations et des souverains (Leiden 1758) was already in his lifetime as a standard work of international law. In this he advocated the principles of the Enlightenment against the policy of Patrimonialstaats and created the so-called " use and cultivation argument". In this treatise, he tried to create a legal basis for the division of the world into colonies. She led on the concept of the nation, the reason of state and the people's interests back together and brought justice and sovereignty not to the standard of reference of the states relations.

Emer de Vattel and the western Swiss natural law school made ​​a fundamental contribution to the discussion of natural law and the social and political foundations, thus affecting the natural law founded on Human and Peoples Rights and the American constitution (Virginia Bill of Rights, Declaration of Independence ), which in turn model for the Swiss State was.