in the thought of political philosophers of the seventeenth century, like Hobbes and locke , the notion of natural law, or a law of nature. was connected with the notion of a 'state civil society. consequently Emerich de Vattel, an international jurist of the eighteenth century , put forward the idea that states , whose relations with each other are regulated by something like natural law and not by an imposed and cnforceable positive law , are in a state of nature . And because the earlier theorists had spoken of individuals in a state of nature as being free (or independent) and equal , Vattel thought the same must be true of states . states are independent , and must be regarded as equal.