Of Spiders and Bees 211was a French writer and po liti cal fi gure, Henri François d’Aguesseau, who
ser ved as procurator general of France for many years, as well as chancellor on
three diff erent occasions in the early eigh teenth century. (His statue silently
surveys the passing crowds of Paris in front of the Palais Bourbon.)
D’Aguesseau, like Zouche, had opined that “droit entre les gens” (law between
nations) would be a better description of the subject, in place of the more tra-
ditional “droit des gens” (law of nations). Bentham’s modest contribution was
to translate this into En glish by coining the neologism “international.”
In the period just before this, in 1786– 89, Bentham had published a series
of four brief articles, to which he gave the collective title of “Principles of
International Law.” In the fi rst of these, he sought to bring the insights of his
utilitarian philosophy to bear on the subject. Bentham famously had no use
for abstract concepts of natural rights, of the sort that were soon to boil over
in France. Instead, his guiding star was the more down- to- earth concept of
utility. In this vein, he proposed that the goal of international law should be
“the greatest happiness of all nations taken together.” Th e last of the four
essays was “A Plan for Universal and Perpetual Peace.” It was largely a plea
for a twofold program of arms limitation and decolonization. But it also in-
cluded a proposal for a “common court of judicature” for the international
community. He pondered whether an armed force should be formed to en-
force the court’s judgments if need be, but decided against it. A better means
of ensuring compliance, he thought, would be by force of public opinion.
Firm guarantees of freedom of the press in countries throughout the world
would be the means by which this opinion would be mobilized.
Shortly aft er that— though owing nothing to Bentham’s inspiration— an
international judicial mechanism, of a sort, was actually established. Th is
was a body of the type that became known as a mixed- claims commission,
established by the United States and Britain in the Jay Treaty of 1794 (named
for its American negotiator). One function of the treaty was to resolve
disputes that had arisen between the two countries over some captures of
American ships by the British navy in the West Indies in 1793– 94, aft er the
outbreak of war between Britain and France. Th is was to be done by a fi ve-
member commission, comprising members of both states (hence the name
“mixed” claims commission). A second body was established to deal with
the vexing question of indebtedness by Americans to British creditors. In the
commission on ship seizures, the leading dispute was over the lawfulness of