O problema das relações interestatais no pensamento político de Rousseau

Abstract

The goal of the present paper is to explain what compels J.-J. Rousseau to claim that conflict is inherent to the relations between states, elucidating the grounds of the diagnosis brought forth in his Principes du droit de la guerre, according to which “the state of war is natural between powers”. In order to do so, one proposes a hypothesis that can be divided in two complementary axes. If the Genevan sustains that the original condition of sovereignties is one of mutual hostility, it is due (i) to a profound questioning of the effectuality, if not of the very possibility, of a legal regulation of the international arena and (ii) to the peculiar nature of the political entity. The first branch of this hypothesis leads us to the critical dialogue that Rousseau establishes with the jusnaturalistic tradition, once natural law, at least in its canonical sense, imposes itself as an obligation principle for both individuals and collective beings. Thus, from this perspective the international relations dispose, ab ovo, of a normative mechanism. In consequence, war would invariably be the product of a deviation, of the rupture of a previous order; and never the original state of the international system, as intended by Rousseau. However, the refusal of a natural normativity does not account, per se, for the belligerence of the dynamic between states. It is well known that, from a Rousseauian point of view, individuals in the pure state of nature – that is, disregarding any rational principles of justice – ignore warfare. Hence the second branch of our hypothesis: one must unravel the significant difference between human nature and the nature of the body politic, as to clarify why, left by themselves, individuals enjoy a pacific existence while sovereign powers are prone to conflict.