''De iure belli ac pacis'' (English: ''On the Law of War and Peace'') is a 1625 book in
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through ...
, written by
Hugo Grotius
Hugo Grotius (; 10 April 1583 – 28 August 1645), also known as Huig de Groot () and Hugo de Groot (), was a Dutch humanist, diplomat, lawyer, theologian, jurist, poet and playwright.
A teenage intellectual prodigy, he was born in Delft ...
and published in Paris, on the legal status of
war
War is an intense armed conflict between states, governments, societies, or paramilitary groups such as mercenaries, insurgents, and militias. It is generally characterized by extreme violence, destruction, and mortality, using regular o ...
. It is now regarded as a foundational work in
international law
International law (also known as public international law and the law of nations) is the set of rules, norms, and standards generally recognized as binding between states. It establishes normative guidelines and a common conceptual framework for ...
. The work takes up
Alberico Gentili
Alberico Gentili (14 January 155219 June 1608) was an Italian-English jurist, a tutor of Queen Elizabeth I, and a standing advocate to the Spanish Embassy in London, who served as the Regius professor of civil law at the University of Oxfor ...
's ''De jure belli'' of
1598
__NOTOC__
Events
January–June
* February 21 – Boris Godunov seizes the throne of Russia, following the death of his brother-in-law, Tsar Feodor I; the ''Time of Troubles'' starts.
* April 13 – Edict of Nantes (promulgated April 30 ...
, as demonstrated by
Thomas Erskine Holland.
Content
Its content owed much to Spanish theologians of the previous century, particularly
Francisco de Vitoria
Francisco de Vitoria ( – 12 August 1546; also known as Francisco de Victoria) was a Spanish Roman Catholic philosopher, theologian, and jurist of Renaissance Spain. He is the founder of the tradition in philosophy known as the School of Sala ...
and
Francisco Suarez
Francisco is the Spanish and Portuguese form of the masculine given name ''Franciscus''.
Nicknames
In Spanish, people with the name Francisco are sometimes nicknamed "Paco". San Francisco de Asís was known as ''Pater Comunitatis'' (father of ...
, working in the Catholic tradition of
natural law
Natural law ( la, ius naturale, ''lex naturalis'') is a system of law based on a close observation of human nature, and based on values intrinsic to human nature that can be deduced and applied independently of positive law (the express enacte ...
.
Grotius began writing the work while in prison in the Netherlands. He completed it in 1623, at
Senlis, in the company of
Dirck Graswinckel.
According to
Pieter Geyl:
It is an attempt by a theologically and classically educated jurist to base upon law order and security in the community of states as well as in the national society in which he had grown up. In the rather naïve rationalism, the belief in reason as the lord of life, is revealed the spiritual son of Erasmus
Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus (; ; English: Erasmus of Rotterdam or Erasmus;''Erasmus'' was his baptismal name, given after St. Erasmus of Formiae. ''Desiderius'' was an adopted additional name, which he used from 1496. The ''Roterodamus'' w ...
.
In particular, this work is remembered for the sentence:
''Et haec quidem quae iam diximus, locum aliquem haberent etiamsi daremus, quod sine summo scelere dari nequit, non esse Deum, aut non curari ab eo negotia humana.''
What we have been saying would have a degree of validity even if we should concede that which cannot be conceded without the utmost wickedness: that there is no God, or that the affairs of men are of no concern to Him.
Such a concept has been synthesized with the famous Latin phrase ''etsi Deus non daretur'',
[Beck, Richard (8 December 2010), ]Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (; 4 February 1906 – 9 April 1945) was a German Lutheran pastor, theologian and anti-Nazi dissident who was a key founding member of the Confessing Church. His writings on Christianity's role in the secular world have ...
:
etsi deus non daretur
' . Retrieved 8 July 2013. which means "even when God were assumed not to exist" but is normally translated "as if God did not exist".
References
Further reading
*Cornelis van Vollenhoven. ''On the Genesis of De Iure Belli ac Pacis''. Amsterdam: Koninklijke Akademie van Wetenschappen, 1924.
;Translations
*Francis W. Kelsey, with the collaboration of Arthur E. R. Boak, trans. ''De iure belli ac pacis libri tres''. Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1913–1925 (reprint: Buffalo, NY: William H. Hein, 1995).
*Stephen C. Neff, trans. ''Hugo Grotius: On the Law of War and Peace''. Student edn. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012.
External links
*{{Commonscatinline
Online text (English text, abridged, PDF)Online Text (English text, unabridged, HTML and PDF)
1625 books
International law
Books by Hugo Grotius
Law books
Legal history of the Dutch Republic
1625 in law
17th-century Latin books