School of Salamanca (Natural Law)

School of Salamanca (Natural Law) gathers the Spanish Catholic theologians and jurists of the sixteenth century School of Salamanca, centered on the University of Salamanca, who developed an early and influential theory of natural law and natural rights grounded in Thomist philosophy. Their work, above all Francisco de Vitoria's writing on the rights of indigenous peoples in the Americas and the just conduct of war, is widely regarded as laying foundational groundwork for the later development of international law, making this group a direct precursor to the Classical International Law Founders grouped elsewhere in this subcategory.