Hugo Grotius

Dutch scholar and politician

• Born: April 10, 1583
• Birthplace: Delft, Holland, United Provinces (now in the Netherlands)
• Died: August 28, 1645
• Place of death: Rostock, Mecklenburg (now in Germany)

Grotius is considered the father of international law for his groundbreaking 1625 treatise On the Law of War and Peace. Although he favored peaceful resolution of conflicts between states, one of his best known concepts is that of the just war—war to enforce a state’s legal rights and secure redress for violations of those rights in the absence of any judicial remedy.

Early Life

Hugo Grotius (HYEW-goh GROH-shee-uhs) was born into a prominent Dutch family on Easter Sunday, 1583. His father was burgomaster of Delft before becoming curator (member of the board of trustees) of the University of Leiden; an uncle was a professor of law at that institution. A child prodigy, Hugo began his own studies there in 1594 at the age of eleven, majoring in philosophy and classical philology. He received a doctorate of laws in 1598 from the University of Orléans while he was visiting France with a Dutch diplomatic mission. He so impressed his elders with the breadth of his knowledge that the French king, Henry IV, publicly hailed him as “the miracle of Holland.”

In 1599, Grotius was admitted to the bar in his native province of Holland. In 1601, he was named Latin historiographer of Holland. In 1604, he was appointed legal counsel to the commander in chief of the armed forces of the United Netherlands, Prince Maurice of Nassau (Orange), and was appointed in 1607 advocaat-fiscaal for the court of Holland, Zeeland, and West Friesland (a position combining responsibility for prosecution of criminal cases with that of looking after the state’s property interests). On July 7, 1608, he married Maria van Reigersbergh. The marriage produced four sons and three daughters. One of the sons and two of the daughters died in infancy.

In 1613, Grotius was sent on a special diplomatic mission to England. That same year, he was appointed pensionary (paid officer) of the city of Rotterdam, a post that included a seat in the States-General (or parliament) of Holland. In 1617, he became a member of the College van Gecommitteerde Raden (committee of councillors), which, with the landsadvocaat (de facto prime minister) Johan van Oldenbarnevelt, was responsible for the day-to-day administration of provincial affairs.

In these positions, Grotius became entangled in the bitter conflict between the Arminians and the Calvinists—with himself emerging as a leader of the Arminian party. The theological issue was the Arminian affirmation of human moral freedom, in contradiction to the Calvinist doctrine of unconditional predestination. The conflict became transformed into a constitutional crisis that pitted the provincial authorities of Holland, on one side, against Prince Maurice and the central government of the United Netherlands, on the other. The result was a military coup by Prince Maurice in 1618 in which Grotius was arrested and then sentenced the following year by a special tribunal to life imprisonment for treason. In 1621, he escaped from prison, thanks to a daring plan devised by his wife, and went into exile in France with a modest pension from King Louis XIII of France.

Life’s Work

Grotius was a prolific writer. While still a student, he had gained fame for his poetry in Greek and Latin, and he continued his literary endeavors throughout his life. His output included two lengthy poetic dramas in Latin on religious themes, Adamus exul (1601; The Adamus Exul , 1839) and Christus patiens (1608; Christ’s Passion , 1640); editions of Greek and Latin poetic and historical texts; and patriotic histories of ancient Holland. During his later years, his major preoccupation became theology and biblical commentary. Nearly eight thousand letters to and from Grotius have survived.

Grotius is remembered primarily, however, for his legal treatises. His first, De jure praede commentarius , upholding on the grounds of natural law the right of captors to the proceeds of property captured during war, was written around 1604-1606 for the Dutch East India Company. The work was not published, however, until 1868, after the manuscript had been rediscovered. An English translation appeared in 1950 under the title Commentary on the Law of Prize and Booty . A chapter from this longer work—setting forth Grotius’s arguments in favor of freedom of navigation and trade—was published anonymously in 1609 as Mare liberum (The Freedom of the Seas , 1916).

In 1622, Grotius published what was simultaneously an analysis of the public law of Holland and a defense of his own official conduct to rebut the accusations for which he had been imprisoned. The work, which appeared in Latin and Dutch editions, is entitled Apologeticus eorum qui Hollandiae Westfrisiaeque et vicinis quibusdam natioibus ex legibus praefuerunt (defense of the lawful government of Holland and West Friesland, together with some neighboring provinces, as it was before the change occurring in 1618). Of more long-term significance was his analysis of Dutch private law—the rights that are enjoyed by individuals to and in things—in his Inleidinge tot de Hollandsche Rechts-geleerdheid (1631; Introduction to Dutch Jurisprudence , 1845). Although written during his imprisonment, the work was not published until 1631. Modeled upon Justinian’s Institutes (c. 533)—and amalgamating Roman law principles with Old Dutch customs and charters—Introduction to Dutch Jurisprudence would enjoy in Holland the same authority that Sir William Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765-1769) would have in the Anglo-American legal world. For more than a century, the work remained the foundation of instruction in civil law in the Dutch universities. Whereas Apologeticus has never been translated into English, Introduction to Dutch Jurisprudence has appeared in three different English translations.

Grotius’s most influential work was his De iure belli ac pacis libri tres (1625; On the Law of War and Peace , 1654). He appears to have written the work after his escape from prison while living in France; the first edition, in three volumes, was published in Paris. Grotius’s revisions and additions were incorporated into the second edition, published in Amsterdam in 1631; that edition is generally regarded as the definitive text. Grotius’s purpose, as he explains in the preface to the work, was to elucidate the laws that should govern “the mutual relations among states or rulers of states.”

His starting point is the existence of a common law governing all humankind derived from three sources: the law of nature (that is, rules discovered by the right reason implanted in humans by God); the ius gentium (law of nations), or rules that have been accepted in the actual customs and usages of all or nearly all peoples; and God’s direct commands expressed through revelation. As a result, states, like individuals, enjoy legal rights, are bound by legal duties, and are liable to punishment for violation of such rights and disregard of such obligations. Yet there is one crucial difference between individuals and states. Within an organized political society, civil law provides legal remedies for the protection of individual rights. States, however, in their relations with one another, have no superior authority to which to turn for the redress of wrongs. Therein lies the basis for Grotius’s concept of the just war—war as an instrument for enforcing a state’s legal rights and securing redress for violations of those rights in the absence of any judicial remedy. As he summed up his position, “Authorities generally assign to wars three justifiable causes, defense, recovery of property, and punishment.”

In this sense, Grotius legitimated war. At the same time, however, he hoped that peaceful measures short of war could be developed to resolve disputes among states. He thought that there was no practical possibility of establishing a world government. He did suggest, however, three methods by which disputes could be settled short of war: conferences, arbitration, and “single combat” by “lot.” If war could not be avoided, he aspired to limit its destructiveness by laying down mitigating rules of warfare, such as those barring the killing of noncombatants. He thus emphasized that there remained in force even during war unwritten laws governing how enemies should behave, “which nature dictates or the consensus of nations has established.”

In 1631, Grotius returned to Holland, but he was forced to flee to Germany early the following year. In 1634, the Swedish chancellor, Count Axel Oxenstierna , appointed him Swedish ambassador to France—a post he would retain until the end of 1644. He played a key role while in Paris in maintaining the French subsidy to Sweden in the Thirty Years’ War. He died at Rostock in what is now the eastern part of Germany on August 28, 1645. His last words, reportedly, were, “By undertaking many things, I have accomplished nothing.”

Significance

Grotius underestimated his legacy. More than one hundred editions and translations of On the Law of War and Peace have appeared since its first publication. The work has had a dual significance. On one hand, Grotius accepted—and legitimated—the modern system of sovereign states that was emerging at the time out of the breakdown of the former legal unity of Christendom under the Papacy and the Holy Roman Empire. On the other hand, he put forth the vision of a still law-bound world to limit, or at least to mitigate, the potential anarchy of the new state system. That vision struck a responsive chord not only among many of his contemporaries but with later generations as well.

The revival of Grotian ideas in the nineteenth century owed much to Henry Wheaton’s History of the Law of Nations (1841). The influence of those ideas can be traced through The Hague Peace Conferences of 1899 and 1907, Woodrow Wilson’s attempt to establish the League of Nations, the establishment of the World Court, and the peace-through-law activists of modern times.

Grotius’s Major Works

1601

• Adamus exul (The Adamus Exul, 1839)

c. 1604-1606

• De jure praede commentarius (pb. 1868; Commentary on the Law of Prize and Booty, 1950)

1631

• Inleidinge tot de Hollandsche Rechtsgeleerdheid (Introduction to Dutch Jurisprudence, 1845)

1625

• De iure belli ac pacis libri tres (On the Law of War and Peace, 1654)

1627

• De veritate religionis Christianae (The Truth of the Christian Religion, 1680)

1655

• Historia Gotthorum, Vandalorum, and Langobardorum

Bibliography

Bull, Hedley, Benedict Kingsbury, and Adam Roberts. Hugo Grotius and International Relations. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992. Examines Grotius’s contributions to the field of international relations. Reappraises his ideas, compares them to previous theories of international relations, and places his philosophy within the context of the wars and controversies of his time.

Chappell, Vere, ed. Grotius to Gassendi. New York: Garland, 1992. Collection of essays about the ideas of Grotius and other early modern philosophers, including Pierre Gassendi.

Dumbauld, Edward. The Life and Legal Writings of Hugo Grotius. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1969. A brief (less than fourteen pages of text) biographical sketch, with an examination of Grotius’s major legal treatises.

Edwards, Charles S. Hugo Grotius, the Miracle of Holland: A Study in Political and Legal Thought. Chicago: Nelson-Hall, 1981. A valuable examination of the sources for the ideas in On the Law of War and Peace, successfully placing Grotius in the larger intellectual context of his time. Edwards downplays the novelty of Grotius’s ideas, demonstrating how Grotius synthesized themes found in the thought of the late Middle Ages.

Gellinek, Christian. Hugo Grotius. Boston: Twayne, 1983. A self-styled exercise in literary analysis. Although Gellinek has a chapter on the legal treatises, the bulk of his text deals with Grotius’s poetic works, philological texts, and patriotic histories.

Knight, W. S. M. The Life and Work of Hugo Grotius. 1925. Reprint. Dobbs Ferry, N.Y.: Oceana, 1962. A comprehensive, detailed, and balanced treatment of Grotius’s life and work. The book requires revision, however, in light of the large body of scholarly research conducted since its publication, most of which remains accessible only to those with a knowledge of the Dutch language.

Nellen, Henk J. M., and Edwin Rabbie, eds. Hugo Grotius, Theologian. New York: E. J. Brill, 1994. Discusses Grotius’s main theological works, his relationship to Dutch Humanist scholar Desiderius Erasmus, his opinions on Jews and Judaism, and the reception of Grotius’s theological thought in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. An appendix provides a bibliography of works that explore Grotius as a theologian.

Ter Meulen, Jacob, and P. J. J. Diermanse. Bibliographie des écrits imprimés de Hugo Grotius. The Hague, the Netherlands: Martinus Nijhoff, 1950. The standard bibliography listing more than twelve hundred items with accompanying annotations. The indispensable work for all serious research on Grotius.

Tuck, Richard. The Rights of War and Peace: Political Thought and the International Order from Grotius to Kant. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. Examines the history of thinking on international law with chapters on Humanism, scholasticism, Grotius, Thomas Hobbes, Immanuel Kant, and others.

Vollenhoven, Cornelis van. The Framework of Grotius’ Book “De Iure Bellis ac Pacis,” 1625. Amsterdam: Noord-Hollandsche, 1931. A perceptive and detailed analysis of On the Law of War and Peace by a scholar who was probably the foremost modern Dutch expert on Grotius.