The Invention of Custom

Francesca Iurlaro is a Senior Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law. She holds a PhD in Law from the European University Institute in Florence (2018). She graduated in the history of philosphy (University of Macerata, 2014) and has an LLM in Comparative, European and International Laws (European University Institute, 2015). She was a Global Postdoctoral Fellow at NYU School of Law (2019-2020).Her research interests include international legal thought, history of political thought, history and reception of natural law theories, law and literature, food ethics, and animal rights. In 2012 she was awarded the Alberico Gentili Prize for her Italian translation of and introduction to Alberico Gentili's Lectionis Virgilianae Variae Liber ad Robertum filium, a less-known commentary of Virgil's Eclogues published by the famous Italian jurist in 1603.

• Introduction: The 'Problematic' of Custom in the Natural Law and Ius Gentium TraditionPart I. Custom, Conscience, and Natural Law1: The Problematic of Custom in Roman and Canon Law2: 'Like Beginners in Arabic'. Custom and Reason in Francisco de Vitoria's Doctrine of Ius Gentium3: Obligation through Agreement, Agreement on Obligation: Customary Ius Gentium as Expression of Will in Francisco SuárezPart II. Rhetoric and Humanism: Historicizing Custom4: Custom as Historiography: Alberico Gentili5: A Literary History of Custom: Hugo GrotiusPart III. The 'Birth' of Customary Ius Gentium as an Independent Legal Regime6: A Turn Inward: the Europeanization of Customary Ius Gentium7: Custom in Concentric Circles: Samuel Pufendorf's Customary Ius Gentium between Glory and State Interests8: Christian Wolff and his Ius Gentium Consuetudinarium9: Vattel's Doctrine of Customary Law of NationsConclusionAppendix

Francesca Iurlaro's book is the result of a bold fresh reading of some of the most notorious early-modern writers on the law of nations. The author also dialogues with an impressive number of recent scholarly studies which have been produced on the early-modern law of nations, and it will no doubt foster new debates on the use of authorities and historical arguments in early-modern legal works, and on the normative structure of early-modern natural law and ius gentium.