Fernando Vazquez de Menchaca

Fernando Vazquez de Menchaca (1512 to 1569) was a Spanish jurist born in Valladolid, from a family of judges and administrators. He studied law at the universities of Valladolid and Salamanca, completing his degree around 1548, and went on to serve at the court of Philip II of Spain and as a member of the Council of the Indies. In a treatise published around 1564 he argued that political authority derives from the consent of the governed and that people possess natural rights including liberty and equality, extending these ideas to relations between states as well as within them. As a member of the School of Salamanca, his legal philosophy influenced later thinkers including Hugo Grotius and Samuel von Pufendorf, and is counted among the foundations of modern international law.