Rousseau, War and Peace

If, in the 18th century, Rousseau was unquestionably the major thinker of political law, concerning the law of nations, we rather evoke the names of Vattel, Saint-Pierre or Kant. The last chapter of the Social Contract recognizes this: “after having founded the State on its base, it would remain to support it on its external relations”. This second part of his political thought was not developed by Rousseau: to trace its contours, we only had for a long time only fragmentary texts and indications dispersed in his various works. The partial reconstruction of a text reputedly lost: the Principles of the Law of War (Annales J.-J. Rousseau, 2005; Vrin, 2008) renewed this question and made it possible in particular to clarify Rousseau's relationship with the Abbé de Saint Pierre. 

Under the title War and Peace in the political thought of Rousseau, this study day aims on the one hand t…