Charles Covell considers the poltical thought of Thomas Hobbes in relation to the tradition of international law, and with the intention to challenge the reading of Hobbes as the exponent of the realist standpoint in international thought and practice. The relation of Hobbes to international law is explained through attention to the place that he occupies among the modern secular natural law thinkers, such as Grotius, Pufendorf, Wolff and Vattel, who founded the modern system of the law of nations.