International Judicial Monitor
Published by the International Judicial Academy, Washington, D.C., with assistance from the
American Society of International Law

Winter 2012 Issue
 

Leading Figures in International Law

 

James Kent (United States) (1763 – 1847)

James Kent

By: James G. Apple, Editor-in-Chief, International Judicial Monitor and President, International Judicial Academy

In seeking the origins of international law as recognized and practiced in the United States, a scholar, judge or practicing lawyer interested in such an endeavor would have to pause and review the life of James Kent because of his status as the first jurist in America to focus on international law and its role in establishing the legal foundations and jurisprudence of the new republic. His seminal work, four volumes of Commentaries on American Law, bears a passing resemblance to William Blackstone’s famous Commentaries on the Laws of England, published soon after Kent’s birth, during the years 1765-1769.

Of particular importance to international jurists is the structure of Kent’s monumental work, first published in 1826. The subject of Part I, consisting of nine lectures, is the law of nations, or international law as it is now known. The fact that the author, a noted judge and law professor at the time it was published, chose to introduce the whole discussion of  “American law” with a discourse about international law demonstrates its importance in early America and to the legal fabric of the new nation.

James Kent was born in Dutchess County, New York, the son of a lawyer. He graduated from Yale College in 1781. One of his early notable achievements was his involvement in establishing the Phi Beta Kappa Society there in 1781. He first  practiced law in Poughkeepsie, New York, but moved in 1793 to New York City, where he began his judicial career as a chancery judge. He made another notable contribution to academe the same year he arrived in New York; he became the first law professor at Columbia College (now Columbia University with its Columbia Law School).

Kent moved rapidly up the judicial ladder. He became successively Recorder of New York City, Justice of the New York Supreme Court, Chief Justice of the same court, and, in 1814 Chancellor of New York, the highest judicial position in the state.

He left the judiciary in 1823 upon arriving at retirement age and returned to teaching law at Columbia College. It was during this period that he wrote his influential Commentaries.

The first part of the Commentaries, dealing with the law of nations, covers a variety of subjects, revealing the extent to which that law had developed at that time, both in England and in the United States. His first lecture dealt with the “Foundation and History of the Law of Nations.” He then moved to the issues of the rights and duties of nations in peace and in war, covering such subjects as kinds of property liable to capture, rights of belligerents, rights and duties of neutrals (including trade), and then ends the first part with a discussion of truces, passports, treaties of peace, and finally ”offenses against the law of nations” which is noteworthy because it is the phrase used in the Constitution of the United States, in Article I, Section 8, relating to the powers of Congress.

Kent’s Commentaries became influential in both the United States and in Great Britain, as the first comprehensive statement of American law. An interesting footnote about the Commentaries is that its author used English common law as the basis for his discussions of American law and the foundation for most of his presentations on specific legal subjects. However when common law sources were lacking, he relied on principles of Roman law, thus bringing into American jurisprudence some of the legal principles of the civil law system which is so prevalent in Europe and South America today.

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ASIl & International Judicial AcademyInternational Judicial Monitor
© 2012 – The International Judicial Academy
with assistance from the American Society of International Law.

Editor: James G. Apple.
IJM welcomes comments, suggestions, and submissions.
Please contact the IJM editor at ijaworld@verizon.net.