Dissident Voices 263alliance between natural and positive law. Th e spirit of Vattel and G. F. von
Martens did not die out. An American writer, Henry W. Halleck, for exam-
ple, wrote in this vein in 1861, clearly strongly under the infl uence of Vattel.
In Britain, Henry Maine, a prominent fi gure in the historical school, de-
scribed international law, in 1888, using words that could have come from
Vat t e l. “ Th ere is both a natural and a positive law of nations,” he explained,
with positive law being merely “[t]he most useful and practical part.” And
even positive law, he contended, derives “much of its force and dignity from
the... principles of right reason.” In France, Laurent- Basile Hautefeuille
was also a notable writer in this tradition. An admiralty lawyer, he wrote an
important treatise on the law of neutrality in 1848. In this work, he carefully
distinguished, every step of the way, between three kinds of law: natural law
(which he called “primitive law”), customary law, and conventional (or treaty)
law.
Also in this tradition was Andrés Bello, who was the fi rst Latin American
to write on international law. He was a man of many facets— poet, linguist,
lawyer, and diplomat. A native of the Viceroyalty of New Granada (in present-
day Venezuela) in the late eigh teenth century, he acted as a tutor early in his
career to the young Simon Bolívar and later became acquainted with the re-
nowned scientist, explorer, and phi los o pher Alexander von Humboldt (even
accompanying him on an unsuccessful attempt to climb Mount Ávila in
Venezuela). During the Latin American wars of in de pen dence, Bello served
the insurgent cause as a diplomat, spending nineteen years in London (1810–
29), fi rst in the ser vice of Colombia and then of Chile as well— frequently
with his salary in serious arrears. But the time was well spent. He befriended
the revolutionary fi gures Francisco de Miranda and José de San Martin and
also became friends with the British utilitarian thinkers Jeremy Bentham
and James Mill.
Bello’s Principios de derecho de gentes (Principles of the Law of Nations)
was published in 1832, prior to the work of Wheaton in the United States
(who held Bello in high regard). Two further editions were published up to
1864 (with a slight change of title to Principios de derecho internacional, or
Principles of International Law). He wrote squarely in the Grotian tradition,
presenting international law as a dual system, combining natural law with
positive law. He explained the distinction between them as being that natu-
ral law lacked any coercive power and spoke only to the conscience, whereas