Early Modern Natural Law: Studies and Sources

Book Series
Portrait of Emer de Vattel. Bibliothèque publique et universitaire de Neuchâtel, Schwitzerland

Brill Publishers (Leiden) will publish a series of books under the auspices of the natural law project. The series is entitled Early Modern Natural Law: Studies and Sources and the directors of the project serve as general editors. The series is dedicated to the publication of peer-reviewed studies (monographs as well as collections) and critical editions of sources (both published and manuscript materials) in the history of early-modern natural law. While all aspects of natural law in the period may be considered in the series, special emphasis will be given to natural law as an academic subject. Proposals for works to be included may be addressed to either of the general editors.

General editors:
Frank Grunert (Frank.Grunert@izea.uni-halle.de)
Knud Haakonssen (k.haakonssen@gmail.com)
Laura Beck Varela (laura.beck@uam.es)

Diethelm Klippel ✝

Advisory board:
Maria Rosa Antognazza ✝
John W. Cairns, Faculty of Civil Law, University of Edinburgh
Thomas Duve, Max-Planck-Institut für europäische Rechtsgeschichte
Ian Hunter, Centre for the History of European Discourses, University of Queensland
Martin Mulsow, Forschungszentrum Gotha, Universität Erfurt
Barbara Stollberg-Rilinger, Lehrstuhl für die Geschichte der frühen Neuzeit, Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster
Simone Zurbuchen, Section philosophie, Faculté des lettres, Université de Lausanne
Louis Pahlow, Faculty of Law, Department for Legal History, Goethe-University Frankfurt


Publications

Elisabetta Fiocchi Malaspina and Gabriella Silvestrini (ed.), Natural Law and the Law of Nations in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Italy (Leiden, 2023): Open Access
This volume sheds new light on modern theories of natural law through the lens of the fragmented political contexts of Italy in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and the dramatic changes of the times.

Gábor Gángó (ed.), Early Modern Natural Law in East-Central Europe (Leiden, 2023): Link.
This volume is pioneering in two ways; it draws the east of the Empire and its borderlands into the study of natural law, and it adds natural law to the practical discourse of this region

Dieter Hüning, Stefan Klingner, Gianluca Sadun Bordoni (ed.), Auf dem Weg zur kritischen Rechtslehre? Naturrecht, Moralphilosophie und Eigentumstheorie in Kants “Naturrecht Feyerabend (Leiden, 2021): Link
In recent decades, Kant's philosophy of law has increasingly moved into the focus of moral-philosophical discussions. The ten contributions in the volume ask about the relationship of "Naturrecht Feyerabend" to the tradition of natural law as well as its relationship to critical moral philosophy and the late "Doctrine of Right".

Fiammetta Palladini, Samuel Pufendorf Disciple of Hobbes: For a Re-Interpretation of Modern Natural Law (Leiden: 2019): Link
Fiammetta Palladini’s work is one of the most important discussions of Pufendorf to appear in the latter part of the twentieth century. It cut through the existing field of Pufendorf studies, laying bare its inherited templates and tacit assumptions.

Mads L. Jensen, A Humanist in Reformation Politics: Philipp Melanchthon on Political Philosophy and Natural Law (Leiden: 2019): Link
This book is the first contextual account of the political philosophy and natural law theory of the German reformer Philipp Melanchthon (1497-1560). Mads Langballe Jensen presents Melanchthon as a significant political thinker in his own right and an engaged scholar drawing on the intellectual arsenal of renaissance humanism to develop a new Protestant political philosophy.

Simone Zurbuchen (ed.), The Law of Nations and Natural Law 1625-1800 (Leiden: 2019): Open Access
The Law of Nations and Natural Law 1625-1800 offers innovative studies on the development of the law of nations after the Peace of Westphalia. This period was decisive for the origin and constitution of the discipline which eventually emancipated itself from natural law and became modern international law.