Abstract
Hugo Grotius (Huig de Groot) was born into a well-connected patrician family in Delft in Holland in 1583 and died in 1645, three years before the Thirty Years’ War was brought to an end in the Peace of Westphalia.1 A moderate Protestant, from the beginning it seems likely that Grotius had political ambitions and throughout his life appears to have regarded his writing as a second-order activity. 2 In 1599 he set himself up as an advocate in The Hague, where his growing reputation caused his opinion to be sought both by the Stadtholder, Prince Maurice, and the Dutch East India Company. Only eight years later he was elevated to the position of Advocate-Fiscal of the States of Holland. It was serving the interest of the Dutch East India Company in its struggles with the Portuguese and the Spanish that he directed his thoughts to maritime law and in 1609 he published Mare Liberian, his famous pamphlet in defence of the freedom of the seas. By now the protégé of the powerful Advocate of Holland, Oldenbarnevelt, in 1613 Grotius accepted his offer of the position of pensionary of Rotterdam. This made him the Advocate’s first lieutenant in the States of Holland and thus carried real political power.
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Further reading
Works by Grotius in English translation
De Jure Belli ac Pads Libri Tres (Three Books on the Law of War and Peace) trans.
Francis. W. Kelsey ( 1646 Latin edition), Classics of International Law (Oxford, 1925); repr. New York and London, 1964.
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Historical background
New Cambridge Modern History vol. III, ch. 6 (Mattingly), and vol. IV.
Carter, C. H. (ed), From the Renaissance to the Counter-Reformation: Essays in Honour of Garrett Mattingly (London, 1966), ch. by Carter — ‘The ambassadors of early modern Europe: patterns of diplomatic representation in the early seventeenth century’.
Carter, C. H., ‘Gondomar: ambassador to James I’, The Historical Journal Fall 1964.
Hill, David Jayne, A History of Diplomacy in the International Development of Europe (London, 1905), vol. Il, ch. 7.
Biography
Clark, ‘Grotius’ East India mission to England’, Transactions of the Grotius Society, vol. 20, 1935, pp. 45–84.
Dumbould, E., The Life and Legal Writings of Hugo Grotius (Norman, 1969 ).
Gellinek, C., Hugo Grotins (Boston, 1983 ).
Knight, W. S. M, The Life and Works of Hugo Grotius (New York and London, 1962 ).
O’Connell, D. P., Richelieu (London, 1968), chs 17 and 18 [Grotius in France].
General
Adair, E. R., The Exterritoriality of Ambassadors in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (London, 1929 ).
Berridge, G. R., Diplomacy: Theory and Practice 2nd edn (Leicester, 1999), ch. 1.
Bozeman, Adda B., ‘On the relevance of Hugo Grotius and De Jure Belli ac Pacis for our times’, Grotiana, NS I, pp. 65–124.
Bull, Hedley, B. Kingsbury and A. Roberts (eds), Hugo Gratins and International Relations (Oxford, 1992 ).
Butterfield, H. and M. Wight, Diplomatic Investigations: Essays in the Theory of International Politics (London, 1966), ch. 2 (Bull, ‘The Grotian conception of international society’).
Bynkershoek, Cornelius van, De Fora Legatorum Liber Singularis (The Jurisdiction over Ambassadors in both Civil and Criminal Cases) first publ. 1721, trans. of the 1744 edn by G. j. Laing, with an introduction by Jan de Louter, repr. in London 1964 in the ‘Classics of International law’ series.
Cahier, Philippe and Luke T. Lee, ‘Vienna Conventions on Diplomatic and Consular Relations’, International Conciliation, no. 571, Jan. 1969.
Cutler, A. C., ‘The Grotian tradition in international relations’, Review of International Studies vol. 17, no. 1, 1991 Icomments on his experiences at hands of Richelieu in Paris].
Denza, Eileen, Diplomatic Law: Commentary on the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, 1961, 2nd edn (Oxford, 1998 )
Edwards, C. S., Hugo Grath’s, the Miracle of Holland: a Study of Political and Legal Thought (Chicago, 1981).
Gentili, Alberico, De Legationibus libri ties (1585), trans.
G. L. Laing, Classics of International Law (Oxford and New York, 1924), repr. New York and London, 1964.
Holk, L. E. von, and C. G. Roelofson (eds), Grotius Reader (The Hague, 1983 ).
Lauterpacht, H, H., ‘The Grotian tradition in international law’, British Yearbook of International Law, 1946; repr. in 11. Lauterpacht, International Law: collected papers, ed. E. Lauterpacht, vol. 2, part I (Cambridge, 1975 ).
Lyons, A. B., ‘Immunities other than jurisdictional of the property of diplomatic envoys’, British Yearbook of International Law, vol. 30, 1953.
Mattingly, Garrett, Renaissance Diplomacy (Harmondsworth, 1965), chs. 4, 27 and 28.
Murphy, C. F., ‘The Grotian vision of world order’, American Journal of International Law, vol. 76, 1982, pp. 477–98.
Suarez, Francisco, De Legibus ac Deo Legislator (1612), in Selections from Three Works of Francisco Suarez, Classics of International Law (Oxford, 1944 ).
Vattel, Emmerich de, Le Droit des Gens (The Law of Nations, or the Principles of Natural Law Applied to the Conduct and to the Affairs of Nations and of Sovereigns) first publ. 1758, trans. of this edition by C. G. Fenwick, with an introduction by Albert de Lapradelle, repr. in London in 1964 in the ‘Classics of International Law’ series.
Young, E., ‘The development of the law of diplomatic relations’, British Yearbook of International Law, vol. 40, 1964, pp. 141–82.
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© 2001 G. R. Berridge, Maurice Keens-Soper and T. G. Otte
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Berridge, G.R. (2001). Grotius. In: Diplomatic Theory from Machiavelli to Kissinger. Studies in Diplomacy. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230508309_4
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