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The reflections offered here aim to outline the literature on jus gentium (the law of nations), with a particular focus on the international challenges generated by the debate on the abolition of the slave trade in the first half of the nineteenth century. This refers to how Brazil, the United Kingdom, and Portugal turned to the law of nations for tools of knowledge in order to justify political measures taken in relation to the international slave trade. By analyzing the three categories of the law of nations -- natural, positive, and possible -- we form explanatory frameworks for the initiatives undertaken in the disputes established prior to the abolition of the trading of slaves from Africa to the Americas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]