Gestión administrativa referente a la planificación de procesos y control de

Initially the extension of natural law to the Law of Nations, subsequently termed International Law by Jeremy Bentham,72 _{was intended to guarantee the sovereignty of the}

European nations. While the political aspirations of the different nations varied, they operated from what was essentially a common philosophical base: from an

understanding of natural law based on Eurocentric Christian norms. Expansion through exploration and imperialism altered the perceptions of nineteenth-century theorists whose understandings now had to accommodate peoples with widely varying degrees of

civilisation. The exact influence of natural law and rights in the formulation of

international law generates much disagreement and, I believe, misunderstanding amongst historians who underrate its influence. Essentially the disparity occurs over what Sankar Muthu terms the conventional distinctions: ‘universalism and relativism or essential and constructed identities’.73

The legitimacy of natural law’s presence in nineteenth-century Britain, and throughout Europe, was confirmed by its necessary role in the Law of Nations. The position of the Law of Nations, and its linking to natural law further complicated the debate, particularly where it caused some positivists, such as John Austin, great difficulty

71 _{Ibid. 23. Maine discussed in detail his view of the history of natural law theory, originating with the} Ancient Greeks, being passed on to the Romans and through them, into early British law, most particularly into equity. For this discussion see Maine, Ancient Law. pp. 53-72.

72 _{See reference to Jeremy Bentham in Casper Sylvest, “The Foundations of Victorian International Law”} in Bell, Victorian Visions of Global Order : Empire and International Relations in Nineteenth-Century Political Thought. 49.

in reconciling international law’s very existence, there being no legislating sovereign. Travers Twiss, the civil lawyer, would have none of this. He regretted that at a time when there was evidence establishing the ‘ascendency of the Reason over the Will’ people who were judged to be eminent writers in the field of jurisprudence had:

adopted the primeval Notion of Law according to which Law is exclusively to be regarded as a rule of conduct imposed by a Sovereign Power upon a Subject Community; in other words, as the Enactment of the Will of a Superior Power 74

Undoubtedly with John Austin’s views in mind, Twiss pointed out, according to

that use of the word ‘law’, there could be no such thing as a Law of Nations, there being no acknowledged common superior.75 _{He believed that a more reasonable interpretation}

of Law was evident in the practice of law prior to Grotius. Where the sanction of a rule of conduct was physical, the term Law was appropriate, where the sanctions were within the human conscience, morality applied.76 _{Twiss’s conflict with his fellow Catholic civil}

lawyer, George Bowyer, was over the role of the pope in controlling bishops, and their church land in the sovereign territory of Great Britain. Twiss argued against the pope’s authority on the basis of international law. The more frequent use of international law, however, was to protect European nations from each other. This involved the protection of sovereign territory, peoples, and possessions whether within the territory or in transit on the high seas. For these purposes the general commonality of Judeo-Christian

principles could permit reasonable agreement amongst nations on the nature of common

74 _{Travers Twiss, The Law of Nations Considered as Independent Political Communities. New Ed, rev. and} enl. ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1884). vi.

75 _{Ibid. vi.} 76 _{Ibid. vii.}

international laws.77 _{The absence of an overall sovereign meant the establishment of}

precedents based on universalist principles. Robert Phillimore as judge of the Admiralty court made decisions on the basis of civil law not common or civic law. Civil law had its origins in natural law. The reliance on universal natural law principles became

particularly important in international disputes over prizes, and in times of warfare, where the relationship between combatants and non-combatants needed determination. The ownership of cargo at sea was particularly controversial: its source; ultimate destination; and purpose, military or peaceful, required arbitration and clarification. Unlike positive law, but in common with natural law largely, international law depended for its

enforcement on general acceptance and adherence to the principles espoused. Political and commercial pressure rather than legal punishment were necessary in a setting where acquiescence by a nation was strongly influenced by its own aspirations and agenda. The jural and spiritual contexts of these conflicting views demonstrate the lack of agreement on the continued role of natural law and rights. Although civic or positive law continued to grow exponentially, there was sufficient evidence of the continued use of natural law and rights theory to refute the argument that it had disappeared during the nineteenth century in Britain. The following figures to be discussed are examples drawn from jurisprudence, international law, and spiritual life who demonstrate not only a ready acknowledgement of natural law and rights theory but a willingness to meld it with positive law, creating legal structures which had not previously existed.

77 _{The perception of Turkey as one of the European nations caused endless difficulty where a perceived} absence of these values caused them to be regarded as ‘barbaric’ or to be grudgingly and suspiciously accepted within the European community.

SECTION A: JURISPRUDENCE AND NATURAL LAW