Blame it on Grotius: John Goodman reflects on the legacy of the Dutch moralist Hugo Grotius in the evolution of international law.

• Author: Goodman, John
• Position: Essay

Previous centuries are usually seen as lawless, while our enlightened days sometimes seem to show a veneer of law now applies. This is an error. The balance of power system set up by major countries in 1648 still rules. How was it done and how is this system perpetuated? Instrumental reason--the narrow sort used in courts to justify any position whatever--was not invented by Grotius, but he was among the first to show how it could be used to advance the national secular interest (as opposed to the interests of princes and the church). He thus bears heavy responsibility for the state of the international order today.

During study in London, a wise international lawyer counselled that when asked for an opinion, one should first ask what answer is required. This dictum, which has charm, humour and perhaps several layers of meaning, was not invented by the British, who liked to borrow useful ideas from the Dutch, such as fine weaving, a monarch, banking, global trade and modern international law. The full genealogy of policy on the last two seems uncertain, but their iconic 'father', still somewhat revered in Atlantic and Pacific circles today, is arguably the Dutch moralist, jurist and political writer Hugo Grotius.

The life of Grotius, who lived in interesting times, is quickly told. He found himself caught between patrician Dutch republicans fighting off France and Spain, the old world Catholic powers and seething Dutch Calvinist underclasses out to impose ideas of predestination on Catholic powers, patricians and anyone else. His personal leanings lay towards none of these but to 'natural' freedoms for secular ends; unsurprisingly, he found himself at odds with almost everyone in Rotterdam, condemned to prison for life. Within a couple of years, however, his wife smuggled him out, hidden in a book chest. Thereafter he fled to Paris, and finding Paris still warm after 30 years' war against Protestants, fled to Germany, just at the beginning of 30 years' war against Catholics. He then 'retir'd' to Amsterdam, the most peaceful haven. No record exists, but he may have been tipped off by his contemporary, Descartes, another fugitive from justice, who wrote a book called Rules for the Direction of the Mind and claimed no quieter place for leisure and reflection existed than Amsterdam.

Along the way Grotius wrote his classic The Rights of War and Peace, which assumes in the modern scientific style that neither man nor states are subject to any predetermined restraints of the type hitherto supposed by princes and prelates but that the laws and morals necessary for men and states to live together in harmony were to be found in 'nature', his analytical starting point. (1) He therefore formulated 'natural freedoms' in the terms we know today: freedom of the seas, trade and navigation. His insights, if not entirely unknown, were radical, as he was perhaps first to refocus moral issues and gear laws to the specific needs of new companies and changing times. Holland was the new Venice, the rising scientific, sea and commercial power, and his views naturally suited such interests. Indeed, they were written specifically for use by the Dutch East India Company in defence of its global trading interests. His Free Seas built upon an earlier work for the same company, written to justify the taking by a Dutch ship of a Portuguese trader on the high seas. (2) The precise terms of Grotius's brief from the company have not passed down to us. But whoever set them found Grotius ready with required answers. The book carried the long title On the rights of the Dutch to trade in the world.

Natural law

Although natural law' can seem a shadowy concept to modern minds, Grotius's books are anything but that; they take a clear first place as positive, positivistic and humanist contributions to our common human life. They transformed international law, then as now seen as conservative, into a possible instrument of policy, much as parliaments view legislation. A biographer asserts 'one cannot confine a great man to his century'. (3) Grotius's work has been elaborated since the 17th century but has come down to us essentially unchanged in principles, outlook and ambition. Freedom of trade, for example, remains an aspiration, its partial achievements ever subject to threat of restriction, and freedom of navigation is rarely free from some regional challenge. Nearly 400 years later, fully liberal shipping freedoms remain 'unfinished' business in trade negotiations, although negotiators these days do not usually cite him in support of his positions.

Old books on law, perhaps understandably, are less popular reading today than old books on war. Everybody, according to Adam Smith's observation of coffee house broadsheets in his day, enjoys a good war, although this human...