jus gentium

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin iūs gentium. See the calque law of nations for more.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /jʊs ˈd͡ʒɛnsi.əm/, /-ti-/, /-t͡si-/, /-ʊm/

Noun

jus gentium (uncountable)

1. (law) The law of nations; international law.
   • 1853 April 13, John Jackson, “The City of Manchester”, in The Manchester Guardian, page 8:

     This was always law in all states, as part of jus gentium, for the fact of a people building a wall round their town was looked upon as an assumption of independent power, and significative of claims inconsistent with or dangerous to the sovereigns.

   • 1982 April, Gamal M. Badr, “A Survey of Islamic International Law”, in Proceedings of the Annual Meeting (American Society of International Law), volume 76, →JSTOR, page 56:

     The Islamic law of nations is part of the corpus of Islamic law, just as the original jus gentium was a branch of municipal Roman law.

   • 1989 October 27, Keith Motherson, “Universal jurisdiction and war crimes against humanity”, in The Guardian, page 22:

     There is a long line of English law which declares that the customary law of nations, jus gentium, is directly part of the common law of this nation.

   • 2000 January 9, “Rules Have Changed But Little in the Past Millennium of Law”, in The Salt Lake Tribune, page 26:

     The Roman jurisconsults (lawyers) and praetors (judges) had become a permanent heritage, and the Roman idea of a jus gentium, a law applying to all people, survived at least in the ideal.

   • 2012 October 11, “Prince Roy of Sealand”, in The Daily Telegraph:

     Embracing the ancient legal doctrine of jus gentium, Bates declared independence.

Translations

law of nations — see law of nations

References

• “jus gentium, n.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, launched 2000.
• “jus gentium”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.

Latin

Noun

jūs gentium n sg (genitive jūris gentium); third declension

1. medieval spelling of iūs gentium

Declension

Third-declension noun (neuter, imparisyllabic non-i-stem) with an indeclinable portion, singular only.

Case	Singular
Nominative	jūs gentium
Genitive	jūris gentium
Dative	jūrī gentium
Accusative	jūs gentium
Ablative	jūre gentium
Vocative	jūs gentium

References

• “jus gentium”, in William Smith et al., editor (1890), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, London: William Wayte. G. E. Marindin