Who was Hugo Grotius and what was his contribution to the development of international law?
Hugo Grotius, or Huegeianus de Groot was born in Delft, Netherlands in April 10, 1583. He was an extremely talented child who wrote Latin elegies at the age of eight and became a student of the Leiden University at the age of eleven, where his father worked as curator. At the age of 15, he accompanied Johan van Oldenbarnevelt on an embassy to Henry IV of France where he was received with great honor and decided to stay and study law at Orleans. When he went back to the Netherlands, he continued to write poetry and history about his native country. After becoming the Dutch Republic’s official Latin histographer, he became increasingly involved in politics. Spain and Portugal claimed monopoly of trade with the East Indies and in retaliation, a Dutch admiral seized the Portugese vessel “Santa Catarina”. The Dutch East India Company asked Grotius in 1604 to write a juridical treatise, “De Jure Praedae” (On the Law of Prize and Booty), where he defended seizing of the vessel on the ground t
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- Who was Hugo Grotius and what was his contribution to the development of international law?
