Word.ws English Dictionary

jus gentium

/jʊs ˈd͡ʒɛnsi.əm/

jus gentium noun: the law of nations; international law.

Noun

jus gentium (uncountable)

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

Examples of jus gentium in a sentence

  • 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.1989 October 27, Keith Motherson, “Universal jurisdiction and war crimes against humanity”, in The Guardian, page 22:
  • 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.2000 January 9, “Rules Have Changed But Little in the Past Millennium of Law”, in The Salt Lake Tribune, page 26:
  • Embracing the ancient legal doctrine of jus gentium, Bates declared independence.2012 October 11, “Prince Roy of Sealand”, in The Daily Telegraph:

Origin of jus gentium

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

Questions about jus gentium

What does jus gentium mean?
Jus gentium means the law of nations; international law.
How do you use jus gentium in a sentence?
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.
What part of speech is jus gentium?
Jus gentium is a noun.
How do you pronounce jus gentium?
Jus gentium is pronounced /jʊs ˈd͡ʒɛnsi.əm/.

Words near jus gentium in the dictionary

  1. Jurōjin
  2. jus
  3. jus accrescendi
  4. jus commune
  5. jus divinum
  6. jus gentium
  7. jus in bello
  8. jus mariti
  9. jus naturale
  10. jus officii
  11. jus primae noctis

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: jus gentium (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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