비토리아와 수아레즈의 萬民法 사상

Ius Gentium in the Legal Thought of Vitoria and Suárez

Hugo Grotius has been widely known as the father of international law or law of nations after 18th century. Around 1930, however, starting with J. Brown Scott a group of legal scholars paid attention to the legal thoughts of ius gentium in the School of Salamanca including Francisco de Vitoria(c.1483~1546) and Francisco Suárez(1548~1617). They revalued Vitoria and Suárez as the founders of modern international law. There has been a lot of controversies over the new perspective in the domestic and foreign academic circles until now. Meanwhile, the understanding of ius gentium in the legal thought of Vitoria and Suárez carries an important meaning of the philosophy of law. Because ius gentium provides the points of question on the nature of law since it possesses both the characteristics of natural law(lex naturalis) and those of positive law(lex positiva or lex humana). And the full-scale study on the idealogical basis, nature, and contents of ius gentium owed much to the contribution of Vitoria and Suárez. It is necessary to understand of ius gentium in the legal thought of Vitoria and Suárez in order to comprehend the origin and development of modern international law. Hypothetically speaking, there is no Grotius without Vitoria and Suárez, there is no modern international law without 'ius gentium' of the School of Salamanca. In the viewpoint of the history of legal thoughts, the School of Salamanca is significant in the sense that it built a bridge between mediaeval theological natural law theory and modern rational natural law theory. The scholars of legal philosophy as well as those of international law find clues to the main legal issues from ius gentium in the legal thought of Vitoria and Suárez.