Product Description

Since the nineteenth century, Hugo Grotius' "Rights of War and Peace" has commonly been seen as the classic work in modern public international law, laying the foundation for a universal code of law. However, in the seventeenth century and during the Enlightenment, the work was considered a major work of political theory that strongly defended the rights of individual agents - states as well as private persons - to use their power to secure themselves and their property. Grotius' continuing influence owed much to the eighteenth-century French editor Jean Barbeyrac, whose extensive commentary was standard in most editions, including the classic, anonymously translated, English one (1738), which is the basis for the Liberty Fund edition. The present edition also includes the Prolegomena to the first edition of "Rights of War and Peace" (1625); this document has never before been translated into English, and adds new dimensions to the great work.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #249976 in Books
• Published on: 2005-07-18
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 3
• Binding: Paperback
• 2024 pages

About the Author
Hugo Grotius (1583-1645) was a great humanistic polymath, lawyer and legal theorist, diplomat and political philosopher, ecumenical activist and theologian.

Customer Reviews

Misleading translation
This is an English translation of the magnus opus of Hugo Grotius (1583-1645), originally written in Latin. Grotius's teachings on justice and law are of immeasurable value and quite beyond an 'Amazon' rating. If I have given the present translation one star, this is a result of the serious flaws of translation which at times heavily distort Grotius's views. The problems start already with the title 'The Rights of...". The Latin 'de iure' is a singular and the idea of its author is to give an account of the conformity of war with justice or, if you may want, the law of war. Grotius is not referring to subjective rights (see Bk. I, Ch. I, III.1 where he states what he means by 'ius' in the title!). The new editor, Sir Richard Tuck, knows all too well that he is mistranslating Grotius in the title: indeed this is part of his programme and idiosyncratic reading of Grotius, as his many critics, and prominently among them, Brian Tierney, would agree. To give only one other example of a mistranslation: in §9 of the Prolegomena, Grotius makes in passing a remark on natural law that reads in Latin: "et quod tali iudicio PLANE repugnant, etiam contra ius naturae, humanae scilicet, esse intelligitur". This is rendered in the present translation as: "And whatsoever is contrary to such a Judgment is likewise understood to be contrary to Natural Right, that is, the Laws of Nature". Among other things, the translation omits the 'PLANE' that I've highlighted in the Latin. Well, 'plane' means 'clearly' and the idea here is that what is CLEARLY contrary to right reasoning is understood to be natural law, not 'whatsoever' is contrary to such a judgment (see Bk. I, Ch. I, X.1). There would be many more examples that illustrate the misleading character of this translation. I recommend the 1925 translation which is a lot more accurate and available in the Legal Classics section of Heinonline.