Hugo GrotiusHugo (Jugo) de Groot

Hugo GrocioHuig de Groot

(10 April 1583 – 28 August 1645)

Hugo Grotiuswas a Dutch jurist and writer. Along with Alberico Gentili and Francisco de Vitoria, he laid the foundations for international law, based on natural law. One of the first to define expressly the idea of one society of states, governed not by force or warfare but by actual laws and mutual agreement to enforce those laws.

His major works are historical and legal matters.

His most famous work  De Jure Belli ac Pacis  (On the Law of War and Peace) in 1625 formed the basis for modern international law.

He is known for his advocacy of free access to the sea.

Contemporary legal historians consider him one of the greatest lawyers ever.

Life and Work of Hugo de Groot……born on April 10, 1583.

in Delft, Holland, Dutch Republic.

first child of Jan de Groot and Alida van Overschie.

he entered the University of Leiden at age 11. He studied with some of the most acclaimed intellectuals in northern Europe, including Franciscus Junius, Joseph Justus Scaliger, and Rudolph Snellius.

In 1598, when he was fifteen, he participated in a Dutch delegation that visited the French court. King Henry IV of France received Hugo with the words: ‘‘Behold, the miracle of Holland’’. The same year, Hugo graduated in Orléans (France) and obtained his doctorate in law.

At age 16 he published his first book.

At same age he earned an appointment as judge-advocate (prosecutor) to The Hague in 1599.

Then he became the official historiographer for the States of Holland in 1601.

Hugo at the age of 16 (by Jan Antonisz Van Ravesteyn, 1599)

His first occasion to write systematically on issues of international justice came in 1604, when he became involved in the legal proceedings following the seizure by Dutch merchants of a Portuguese carrack and its cargo in the Singapore Strait.

De Indis(On the Indies)

A treatise that sought to ground his defense of the seizure of the Portuguese carrack in terms of the natural principles of justice. In this, he had cast a net much wider than the case at hand; his interest was in the source and ground of war's lawfulness in general. The treatise was never published in full during Grotius' lifetime. The court ruled in favor of the Company.

In 1605, Grotius made considerable advances in his political career, being retained as Oldenbarnevelt's resident advisor.

Advocate General of the Fisc of Holland. Zeeland, and Friesland in 1607.

In 1608 he married Maria van Reigersbergen, with whom he would have eight children (only four survived to reach adulthood).

In The Free Sea (Mare Liberum, published 1609) Grotius formulated the new principle that the sea was international territory and all nations were free to use it for seafaring trade.

England opposed this idea and claimed the Dominion of the British Sea.

(Portrait of Grotius at age 25 (Michiel Jansz van Mierevelt, 1608)

In 1613, Grotius became Pensionary of Rotterdam (the equivalent of a mayoral office).

He became he right hand of Van Oldenbarnevelt, the Dutch Land’s advocate of Holland.

A great theological controversy broke out between the Remonstrants (Arminians) and the Calvinist. (Gomarists or Counter-Remonstrants).

Leiden University was under the authority of the States of Holland for the policy concerning appointments at this institution,

which was governed in their name by a board of Curators; and

for dealing with any cases of heterodoxy among the professors.

Grotius joined the controversy by defending the civil authorities' power to appoint (independently of the wishes of religious authorities) whomever they wished to become a university faculty.

Because of his unpopular view with the Calvinist who were in control at that time, Grotius was imprisoned in Loevestein in 1618.

Loevestein Castle where Grotius was imprisoned in 1618–21

He later escaped in March 22, 1621 with the help of his wife and maidservant.

Grotius managed to escape the castle in a book chest and fled to Paris

Grotius was well received in Paris by his former acquaintances and was granted a royal pension under Louis XIII. It was there in France that Grotius completed his most famous philosophical works.

De Jure Belli ac Pacis(On the Law of War and Peace)

De jure belli ac pacis libri tres (On the Law of War and Peace: Three books) was first published in 1625. The work is divided into three books:

- Book I: advances his conception of war and of natural justice.

- Book II: identifies three 'just causes' for war.- Book III: takes up the question of what rules govern the conduct of war once it has begun.

In 1631 he returned to Rotterdam, in the hope that he could settle back in Holland. 

From 1634 he lived as ambassador of Sweden in Paris.

It was his job to win French support for the Swedish intervention policy in Germany.

On December 20, 1644 he was recalled because of the influence of the "French party" at the court in Stockholm.

The young Queen Christina of Sweden wanted to appoint him as state board to advise it on matters of foreign policy.

In March 1645 he left Stockholm, to Lübeck. However, his ship was wrecked when crossing the Baltic Sea. He arrived safely ashore, but far to the east.

He traveled on horseback from August 13 towards Lübeck, exhausted but he reached Rostock.

He died on August 28th. His last words would have been: "to understand much I have achieved nothing.

Hugo Grotius is buried in the Nieuwe Kerk in Delft.

Philosophy of Hugo Grotius

Hugo Grotius defined natural law as the idea that certain things by themselves are good or bad, and because of certain legal principles are valid by themselves. 

Natural law applies even on the assumption that God does not exist. These legal principles he developed and applied in De jure praedae (About the loot right), Law on capture, circa 1604 (published by De Groot).

According to Hugo, natural law is the general human idea that regulates society. It would therefore also apply to the coexistence of people and thus on the use of the sea.

Grotius’ philosophy is that the sea belongs to everyone. Every nation has the right to sail on all seas and to trade with anyone.

One of the arguments he argued to defend his thesis was that possession could only be obtained through labor. The sea cannot be edited and can therefore be no one’s possession (res nullius). Everyone may use it.

In Mare Liberum  (The Free Sea), De Groot for the first time developed a concept of a global community, based on the idea that the sea had to be accessible for all so as to preserve the communication between peoples to keep each other and not to deny access to the overseas territories.

Grotius' argument was that the sea was free to all, and that nobody had the right to deny others access to it.

"Every nation is free to travel to every other nation, and to trade with it." From this premise, Grotius argued that this self-evident and immutable right to travel and to trade required (1) a right of innocent passage over land, and (2) a similar right of innocent passage at sea.

The sea, however, was more like air than land, and was, as opposed to land, common property of all.

De Groot was not only a lawyer, but also a theologian in his right. 

De Groot tried to reconcile his beliefs about natural laws with Calvinism in the Republic of the United Netherlands.

He did not succeed, because this idea is not compatible with the Calvinist concept of predestination.

He wrote De jure belli ac pacis (English: On the Law of War and Peace) in exile. This book would make him the founder of international law.

In the introduction he wrote: ‘‘to prove the (natural) law, I also used the sayings of philosophers, historians, poets, even orators, not because they are unconditionally trustworthy because the parties only wish to prove their case with evidence; it is because, when many people from different periods and places stick to the same, this indicates a universally valid ground.

Natural law applies to states, it must also be applied to wars between those states. This generates the laws of war.

Two types of wars: the righteous and the unrighteous.

Righteous wars are wars that are carried out to defend, wars to get back what was taken away and wars for punishment of crimes. This definition also means that one of the warring parties always enters an unrighteous war.

The best is when wars are prevented by means of conferences and arbitration. These ideas of Hugo would have an enormous influence on later thinkers and they would eventually be realized.

Grotius realized that states would not tolerate, let alone accept , any system of law based on positive legal system of any one country.

He therefore used what to him were principles that could be justified by the precepts of the natural law.

Upon this principles, Grotius built the structure of rules dealing with the relations of states with one another.

His time was gone. Yet, his ideas are far from gone. His legacy, international law, is of inestimable significance. The Hague, once his city, with several international courts is still a center of that right.