BY Somesh Mahajan.
Huig de Groot was born on April 10, 1583, in Delft, Holland. He was the son of Jan de Groot, a Curator at the University of Leyden, where he began studying on August 3, 1594. He was eleven years old. By 1598 he received his Doctorate at the University of Orleans while accompanying Johan van Oldenbarnevelt, the Prime Minister of the United Netherlands, on a diplomatic mission to France. On this trip Grotius, who was fifteen at the time, was greeted by King Henry IV as “the miracle of Holland.” He began practicing law on December 13, 1599, at The Hague.
Grotius wrote four books in his life. Although his writings sometimes dealt with Christianity and religion, his intention for law was to write of it as independent of religious opinions. Prolegomena to the Law of War and Peace was his first published work. De Jure Belli ac Pacis (On the Law of War and Peace), which puts forth his conception of the nature of natural law, came out in 1625. True Religion Explained and Defended against the Archenemies Thereof in the Times (The Truth of the Christian Religion) followed in 1632. De Jure Praedae (Commentary on the Law of Prize and Booty), although finished in 1605, was not published until 1868.
According to Grotius, all law should be divided into what is divine and what is human, which he called the primary laws of nature and secondary laws of nature. Primary laws of nature are laws that completely express the will of God. Secondary laws of nature, on the other hand, are rules and laws that lie within reason. Grotius intended moral laws to apply to both the individual and the state equally.
Grotius discussed war as being a mode of protecting rights and punishing wrongs; a mode of judicial procedures. Although war was considered a necessary evil, it needed to be regulated. The “just war,” in the eyes of Grotius, is a war to obtain a right.
For settling disputes peacefully, he presented three possibilities. The first is conference and negotiation amongst the two rivals or contestants. The second method is called compromise, which is a settlement in which each side gives up some demands or makes concessions. The third is that of single combat or choosing by lot.
He believed that it is sometimes better to renounce rights rather than to try and enforce them. When it comes to bargaining and mediation, he held that for any of the three methods listed above, it is of extreme importance to select a judge with character and decency. Grotius discussed these methods of achieving peace as a means to ultimately obtain some form of justice. He said, “For justice brings peace of conscience, while injustice causes torment and anguish… Justice is approved, and injustice condemned, by the common agreement of good men.”
Although a proponent of peace and justice, he did not have an easy life. However, it was not his views on peace and justice that caused him grief, but his religious leanings. In 1617 Grotius became involved in disputes with the Calvinists. Grotius sided against predestination and Calvinism and took up the Arminian cause of free will. He publicly claimed that Calvinist beliefs could have political and religious dangers to Protestantism. Although he tried to devise a formula for peace that did not go against Calvinism, his attempts failed.
On August 29, 1618 the Calvinist launched a successful coup d’etat. Grotius and van Oldenbarnevelt were among those arrested on behalf of the new States General. Less than a year later they were tried and Van Oldenbarnevelt was sentenced to death while Grotius, on the charge of treason, was sentenced to life in prison at the castle of Loevestein. After he escaped from the castle of Loevestein in March, 1621, Grotius fled to Antwerp and then Paris. It was during his exile there that On the Law of War and Peace is published, which later earned him recognition as the father of international law.