The Jus Gentium as Universal Order

In a lecture given at this university 46 years ago, in June 1946, commemorating the 400 th anniversary of the death of Francisco de Vitoria and entitled 'Premisas filosficas e histricas del totus orbis de Vitoria' (Philosophical and historical premises of Vitoria's totus orbis'), I began by noting, 'The notion of a totus orbis, a sort of world community of mankind, conceived of as a legal entity encompassing all States on the basis of natural law, is undeniably Francisco de Vitoria's greatest and most innovative conception. Without completely doing away with the idea of Christianity, an agreeable one in the Middle Ages, the guiding principle of which was the profession of a single religious faith, it nevertheless established itself as a linchpin of the system of international relations.