"totus orbis, qui aliquo modo est una republica". Francisco de Vitoria, el Derecho de Gentes y la expansión atlántica castellana

Abstract

At the turn of the XVI century, Alexander VI's bulls and the doctrine of the pontifical donation provided the juridical foundations for the Spanish Crown's governmental action in the territories and among the people of the Indies. Considering this conception and, inspired by the ius commune principles, Francisco de Vitoria's theological rereadings emerge from the existence of some natural solidarity among republics. The whole world is a republic, an organically structured political community: a natural corpus of which the barbarian sirs and their subjects, as well as princes and the Christian nations, form part. There is an authority in the whole world and also a people's right that articulates the relations among nations. The juridical titles of the Castilian-Atlantic expansion must then be sought in that ius gentium, whose contents are irrepealable and help form bonds among the republics: some, because they are exigencies of the natural law; others, because they have been enacted by the authority in the whole world and can be modified only as per agreement among all the republics. Vitoria's world is an autonomous order which lies in natural principles and goes beyond the notion of respublica christiana, as well as the so-called universal character of common law. In light of the failures shown by the old principles and institutions, Vitoria's system appears to be an alternative to facing problems and realities, utterly unknown until then. The ideas of the master from Salamanca gave rise to the development of the Spanish school, and they are the origin of modern international law. © 2011 Ediciones Universitarias de Valparaíso Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso.