Thomas Hobbes and International Law

International World as the State of Nature

   Yet in all times, kings, and persons of sovereign authority, because their independency, are in continual jealousies, and in the state and posture of gladiator; having thier weapons pointing, and their eyes fixed on one another; that is, their forts, garrisons, and guns upon the frontiers of their kingdoms; and continual spies upon their neighbours; which is a posture of war. (Leviathan, Chap.XIII, (Oakeshott p.83))

Is the State of Nature a Normless World?

   ...law of nations, and the law of nature, are the same thing.  ...And the same law, that dictateth to men that have no civil government, what they ought to do, and what to avoid in regard of one another, dictateth the same to the commonwealths, that is, to the consciences of the sovereign princes and sovereign assemblies; there being no court of natural justice, but in conscience only; where not men, but God reigneth; whose laws, such of them as oblige all mankind, as in respect of God, as he is the author of nature, are natural; and in respect of the same God, as he is King of Kings, are laws.(Leviathan, Chap.XXX, p.232)

Hobbes' Definition of War and Peace

   Hereby, it is manifest, that during the time men live without common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition whi is call war; and such war, as is of every man, against every man.  For WAR, constisteth not in battle only, or the act of fighting; but in a tract of time, wherein the will to contend by battle is sufficiently known: and therefore the notion of time, is to be considered is to be considered in the nature of war; as it is in the nature of weather.  For as the nature of foul weather, lieth not in a shower or two of rain; but in an inclination thereto of many days together; so the nature of war, consisteth not in actual fighting; but in the known disposition thereto, during all the time there is no assurance to the contrary.  All other time is PEACE. (Leviathan, Chap.XIII, p.82)

   Apparently, his definition of war is wider and that of peace narrower than the common ones.  We did not think that the so-called war was war in the literal sense.  Although present-day U.S. China relationship is more or less tense, we think there is a condition of peaceful co-existence in the Northern Pacific at predent.  Between the two nations, a "hot" war existed during the 1950s.

Hobbes and Grotius

   We may distinguish warless and struggleless situation corresponding to Hobbes' dictinction of war and struggle and give the latter an independant status.  Avoiding struggle can be an objective which is worth striving for, even amid the state of war in the Hobbesean sense.   A struggle brings about the imminent danger to the lives of individuals whereas the danger of war without struggle is less imminent.  Avoiding struggle is an act of necessity.  If we can define the struggleless situation as a provisional peace (which is anyhow a kind of peace), it is what we ought to endeavor to get according to the Hobbesean second law of nature, which orders that "every man, ought to endeavour peace, as far as he has hope of obtaining it." (Leviathan Chap. XIV, p.85)

   If Hobbes chose this way, his theory of international law would be akin to that of Grotius whose central part of international law is a kind of natural law.  Then, the scholars of the following generations might have more often quoted Hobbes as the great precursor of international law than Grotius, because the style of the former is clearcut , whereas that of the latter is abstruse.  It was not the case, however. He wrote:

   For the state of commonwealths considered in themselves, is natural, that is to say, hostile.  Neither if they cease from fighting, is it therefore to be called peace, but rather a breathing time, in which one enemy observing the motion and countenance of the other, values his security not according to the pacts, but the forces and counsels of his adversary....contracts are invalid in the state of nature, as oft as any just fear doth intervene. (De cive XIII,7)

   Moreover, whereas Grotius strived to prohibit unprovocated aggression, Hobbes taught that "there is no way for any man to secure himself, so reasonable, as anticipation" (Levaiathan Chap. XIII, p.81).  Thus Hobbes has been called, not one of the precursors of international law, but the father of the realist international politics.