law of nations
Definitions from Case Law · United States Supreme Court
Definitions from Case Law
From 23 U.S. 66 - The Antelope the Vice-Consuls of Spain and Portugal · 1825Most cited · 206 citing opinions
a collection of rules deduced from natural reason, as that is interpreted by those who adopt them, and resting in usage, or established by compact, for regulating the intercourse of nations with each other.
How the Supreme Court has restated “law of nations”
Each Supreme Court definition of “law of nations,” sized by how often later courts cited it. “Change” is measured by wording overlap with earlier definitions — a rough signal, not a semantic judgment.
How often courts cite the cases defining “law of nations”
Court decisions citing the 3 opinions that defined “law of nations” — 331 in all, by decade. Counts are citations to the defining cases as a whole, not verified uses of the term. The dip in the most recent years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the latest years.
All 3 definitions, chronological · 1815–1871
- ORIGINAL
The law of nations is the great source from which we derive those rules, respecting belligerent and neutral rights, which are recognized by all civilized and commercial states throughout Europe and America. This law is in part unwritten, and in part conventional. To ascertain that which is unwritten, we resort to the great principles of reason and justice: but, as these principles will be differently understood by different nations under different circumstances, we consider them as being, in some degree, fixed and rendered stable by a series of judicial decisions. The decisions of the Courts of every country, so far as they are founded upon a law common to every country, will be received, not as authority, but with respect.
sources
Foreign municipal laws must indeed by proved as facts, but it is not so with the law of nations.