de Vattel: Of Public Conventions Made by Subordinate Powers, and of Conventions with Private Persons

The Law of Nations or the Principles of Natural Law (1758)Emmerich de Vattel

Print |

Email |

Of Other Public Conventions, — of Those That Are Made by Subordinate Powers, — Particularly of the Agreement Called in Latin Sponsio, — and of Conventions of Sovereigns with Private Persons§ 206. Conventions made by sovereigns.§ 207. Those made by subordinate powers.§ 208. Treaties concluded by a public person, without orders from the sovereign, or without sufficient powers.§ 209. The agreement called sponsio.§ 210. The state is not bound by such an agreement.§ 211. To what the promisor is bound when it is disavowed.§ 212. To what the sovereign is bound.§ 213. Private contracts of the sovereign.§ 214. Contracts made by him with private persons in the name of the state.§ 215. They are binding on the na-§ 216. Debts of the sovereign and the state.§ 217. Donations of the sovereign.
   1. Livy, lib. ix.
   2. De Jure Belli et Pacis. lib. ii. cap. xv. § 16.
   3. I have said in my preface, that the fecial law of the Romans was their law of war. The college of the feciales were consulted on the causes that might authorize the nation to engage in a war, and on the questions to which it gave rise. They had also the care of the ceremonies on the declaration of war, and on concluding treaties of peace. The feciales were likewlse consulted, and their agency employed, in all public treaties.
   4. Lib. ii. chap. xv. § 16. Fabius Maximus having concluded an agreement with the enemy which the senate disapproved sold a piece of land for which he received two hundred thousand sesterces, in order to make good his promise. It related to the ransom of the prisoners. Aurel. Victor, de Viris Illustr. Plutarch's Life of Fabius Maximus.
   5. Jus Nat. et Gent. lib. viii. cap. ix. § 12.
   6. Guicciardini, book xii. chap. ii. — De Watteville's History of the Helvetic Confederacy, part ii. p. 185, etc.
   7. See De Watteville's History of the Helvetic Confederacy, p. 190.
   8. In 1596, Philip II. declared himself a bankrupt, under pretense that an unfair advantage had been taken of his necessities. His creditors loudly exclaimed against his conducl, and asserted that no confidence could thenceforward be placed either in his word or his treaties, since he interposed the royal authority to supersede them. He could no longer find any one who was willing to lend him money; and his affairs suffered so severely in consequence, that he was obliged to replace things on their former footing, and to heal the wound which he had given to the public faith, — Grotius, Hist. of Disturbances in Netherlands, book.