States, as Ethico-Political Subjekts of International Law: The relationship between Theory and Practice in the International Politics of Samuel Pufendorf

This chapter focuses on the dialectical relationship between the various principles upon which the theory of international law as developed by Samuel Pufendorf is founded and supported. This theory is substantiated as much by principles of natural law, arising from the complex edifice of the duties of peace, as by strictly political criteria among which there are also, and not least, international treaties. The dialectical relationship that Pufendorf establishes between international law as a moral politics, and the interests of states as an expression of pragmatic politics, constitutes the thin ‘red line’ that keeps the disparate elements—be they moral or political—united and in which he roots his concept of international law.