De jure belli ac pacis

De iure belli ac pacis (English: On the Law of War and Peace) is a 1625 book written by Hugo Grotius on the legal status of war that is regarded as a foundational work in international law.[1][2] The work takes up Alberico Gentili's De jure belli of 1598,[3] as demonstrated by Thomas Erskine Holland.[4] The book was written in Latin and published in Paris.

De jure belli ac pacis, title page from the first edition of 1625.
De jure belli ac pacis, title page from the second edition of 1631.

Content
1719 edition

Its content owed much to Spanish theologians of the previous century, particularly Francisco de Vitoria and Francisco Suarez, working in the Catholic tradition of natural law.[5]

Grotius began writing the work while in prison in the Netherlands. He completed it in 1623, at Senlis, in the company of Dirck Graswinckel.[6]

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.[7]

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.[8]
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.[9]

Such a concept has been synthesized with the famous Latin phrase etsi Deus non daretur,[10][11] which means "even when God were assumed not to exist" but is normally translated "as if God did not exist".

References
  1. Grotius, Hugo (1583-1645) Auteur du texte (April 18, 1625). Hugonis Grotii de Jure belli ac pacis libri tres, in quibus jus naturae et gentium, item juris publici praecipua explicantur – via gallica.bnf.fr.
  2. "Grotius : De jure belli ac pacis". Archived from the original on 2008-12-20. Retrieved 2008-12-14.
  3. Suin, Davide (2017). "Principi supremi e societas hominum: il problema del potere nella riflessione di Alberico Gentili". SCIENZA & POLITICA per Una Storia delle Dottrine (in Italian). 24. doi:10.6092/issn.1825-9618/7106.
  4. Holland, Thomas E. (1908). The Laws of War on Land. The Clarendon Press.
  5. Mark W. Janis, Religion and International Law (1999), p. 121.
  6. Jonathan Israel, The Dutch Republic (1995), p. 483.
  7. Pieter Geyl, History of the Dutch-Speaking Peoples 1555-1648 (2001 English edition), p. 502.
  8. Grotius, Hugo (2005). "Prolegomena 11". In Molhuysen, Philip Christiaan (ed.). Hugonis Grotii. De iure belli ac pacis. Libri tres, in quibus ius naturae et gentium, item iuris publici praecipua explicantur: cum annotatis auctoris (in Latin). Clark, New Jersey: The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd. ISBN 1-584-77539-4.
  9. Neff, Stephen C., ed. (2012). "Prologue". Hugo Grotius. On the Law of War and Peace. Student Edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-12812-4.
  10. See occurrences on Google Books.
  11. Beck, Richard (8 December 2010), Dietrich Bonhoeffer: etsi deus non daretur Archived May 2, 2016, at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 8 July 2013.

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.
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