Putting Nature and Nations Asunder 159display in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam is asserted to be the one that was
employed, but there are rival containers for which the honor is claimed.) He
fl ed to Paris, where he lived for most of the rest of his life.
It was during this period in exile that he wrote the work for which he is
chiefl y remembered: On the Law of War and Peace, published in 1625 and
dedicated to King Louis XIII (who was helpfully providing the impecunious
sage with modest fi nancial support). Th ere were four further editions dur-
ing Grotius’s lifetime, and another published immediately aft er his death. In
later years, he acted as Sweden’s ambassador to France— although this oc-
curred only aft er the death of his royal admirer, King Gustavus Adolphus.
Grotius’s famous book was a sprawling aff air, swarming with allusions to
classical and biblical history, in the standard humanist style of the time (al-
though by modern tastes, it can seem to be some kind of monstrous carica-
ture of that style). Th ree major topics were treated. First came a general ac-
count of the nature and kinds of law. Included in this was a discussion of
sovereignty, which has led to Grotius’s being regarded as an important fi g-
ure in the history of po liti cal theory.
Th e second portion of the book was an extended and detailed exposition
of substantive natural law, covering such topics as the origin, nature, and con-
tent of property rights; punishment for wrongdoing; per for mance of con-
tracts; and much besides. Th ere may have been little here that was truly origi-
nal, but Grotius’s exposition was entirely without pre ce dent in its length and
thoroughness. Medieval treatments of natural law had generally been ex-
tremely brief— little more than very basic statements of broad principle. It
will be recalled that, in the entire Middle Ages, there had been no systematic
treatment of the subject. Even Suárez had not attempted it. For this reason,
Grotius’s book justly became the great founding text of the age of systematic
jurisprudence in the seventeenth and eigh teenth centuries.
Th e third part of the book is the one that is of most interest to interna-
tional lawyers. It was a substantive exposition of the law relating to war. Th is
included not only a discussion of just- war principles but also a detailed con-
sideration of questions relating to the conduct of war and to the making and
interpreting of peace treaties.
In terms of his overall treatment of international law, Grotius’s chief con-
tribution was to expound the thesis that had been put earlier by Suárez, of a
ius gentium that is man- made and distinct from natural law. His exposition,
in fact, was very considerably inferior to that of Suárez in terms of clarity and