Abstract This article focusses on a group of twentieth-century Dutch legal scholars and law graduates whom I call the Leiden Internationalists and their assessment of Grotius’ life, work and modern-day legacy. Cornelis van Vollenhoven and W.J.M. van Eysinga became internationally respected Grotius experts during the Interbellum, responsible for initiating important edition projects like the Briefwisseling van Hugo Grotius , a 17-volume edition of Grotius’ correspondence completed in 2001. The Leiden dons passed on their knowledge and enthusiasm to students like Anneke de Kanter, Eelco van Kleffens and Ben Telders. The five of them developed a common understanding of modern international law, its history and development, and what they believed to be its important role in safeguarding the sovereignty and independence of The Netherlands. They supported the work of the League of Nations and its subsidiaries and successor institutions, citing Grotius as their inspiration. In 1925, they contributed to public commemorations of the tercentenary of the publication of De Jure Belli ac Pacis , which they conceptualized as having planted the seeds of a modern, rules-based international order. For the Leiden Internationalists and many of their compatriots, Grotius continued to symbolize the rule of law and Dutch freedom and independence during the Nazi occupation of The Netherlands (1940–1945). The harrowing experiences of war and oppression, followed by the liberated country’s integration into new military alliances and political frameworks (e.g., NATO and the UN), did much to solidify this public image of Grotius. It remains a powerful narrative about the Dutch contribution to international law to this very day.
Abstract This article undertakes an analysis of the work of Hugo Grotius in De iure belli ac pacis employing a critical, and heretofore unexplored, disability lens. Applying a socio-contextual and rights-based conceptualization of disability, it interrogates how international legal norms have historically excluded or marginalized disabled subjects and provides a rationale for revisiting Grotius’s foundational text through a critical approach to disability. The article proceeds to a close re-reading of De iure belli ac pacis , examining passages on property, legal capacity, truth, the rational-man paradigm, punishment, reparations, and burial to analyze the ableist assumptions embedded in Grotius’s framework for legal subjecthood. The paper tracks the Latin terminology invoked by Grotius to denote persons with disabilities and analyzes their meaning within the Grotian tradition and in terms of modern international law texts. Thereafter, it traces how these rights and assumptions about disability find later expression in contemporary codifications of international law, including, among others, the Hague Conventions and the Geneva Conventions, in terms of subjecthood and legal rights, before contrasting these with the conceptual shift reflected in the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, particularly Article 12 on equal recognition before the law. The article concludes by reflecting on the merits of examining the work of Grotius through a critical disability reading and its relevance for rethinking the normative foundations of international legal codification within the context of disability.
Abstract This article examines legal debates over the use of natural resources in the public international areas beyond national jurisdiction: Antarctica, the high seas, the deep seabed, and outer space. It does this in light of the writings of Hugo Grotius, examining ways in which the early modern metacolonial encounters may have been functionally similar to those in the present. The article illustrates how the legal principles in De iure belli ac pacis (1625) still resonate with the structure of metacolonial arguments today. At the same time, it observes how closely early modern colonial encounters were connected with the recurrence of war. This should come as a reminder not to underestimate the value of the current multilateral conventions and institutions that govern the global commons.
The paper deals with the construction of a “Gentilian moment” in the second half of the nineteenth century. With this wording I mean here the surprising movement that began in the 1870s by virtue of a plurality of factors that are examined in this article. This development placed Alberico Gentili, after a long period of relative neglect, at the centre of the scene of an international law that was undergoing a process of transformation and consolidation. One of the consequences of this was that never before the last decades of the 19th century had the names and works of Gentili and Grotius been so closely intertwined. Up until this phase theirs had been above all a relationship between a trailblazer and someone held to be the undisputed founder of a discipline. Until the 1870s Gentili had thus been seen in Italy as a distinguished figure but not yet as a canonical author, let alone as the co-founder with Grotius of modern international law.
The present contribution examines the idea of public authority, that is, an authority exercised for the common good, emerging from Grotius’s foundational work, De iure belli ac pacis. In focusing on the right to punish in particular, it explores the idea of public authority at the intersection between sovereignty and State/governmental competences in the field of international criminal law. In this ambit, the commission of international crimes is regarded as an obstacle to sociability and their repression as a right of the international community to see those crimes punished [see e.g. the reference to pirates as hostes humani generis ]. Against the background of the blurring public/private divide, the paper argues that Grotius’s intimations of public authority deploy great significance for current governance challenges of community interests, at the crossroad between public authority and private power. As such, this paper intends to contribute to the debate on Grotius’s rights-centred approach to international law at the expense of a common good, though offering a different understanding of the common good in Grotius’s legal thought and its legacy in current international law discourse.
